The Long Road
by emerald-soco
Summary: With the death of a beloved teacher, six teens embark on a journey to honor his memory. What they find on the road could change the way they view the world and each other.
1. It's Not Where You're Going

Hey, guys, sorry about having to re-post this all again, but it wasremoved from the site and – stupid me – I didn't have a copy of the chapters saved. So this is the same story, just slightly rewritten. Hopefully, it'll only take me a few days to get back up to speed and until then, thank you so much for bearing with me!

**It's Not Where You're Going …**

"It is with the deepest regret that I must announce to all of you the passing of a respected and loved member of our staff … Archibald Simpson."

It was probably the first announcement in Principal Raditch's career that hadn't been met with cat-calls, laughter, or spitballs. The auditorium, filled to capacity with Degrassi's student body and staff, was eerily silent as they all took a moment to process his news.

Then the murmuring started.

"Oh, my God, can you even believe it?" Paige whispered to Hazel, careful to keep her gaze straight ahead so as not to call attention to them. The last thing she needed was another detention for talking when she wasn't supposed to. "First Jimmy, now this? I don't think Degrassi can handle any more drama."

Hazel nodded her agreement. "It's awful. I thought he was in remission."

"Me, too." Paige shrugged. "I mean, I guess we can't expect a blow-by-blow update, but seriously. He was our teacher. Someone should've told us he was sick again."

A few rows behind the two girls, Craig sat back in his seat, stunned. He'd just seen Mr. Simpson a few nights ago, dropping Emma off at her house after Joey had suggested having her to dinner. He'd seemed fine – cracking jokes about Joey's cooking and how Emma was lucky to have survived.

"Man, this is terrible," Marco commented, turning his wide brown eyes to his friend's shocked expression. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah – yeah, I'm fine," Craig replied, digging deep into his backpack for his cell phone. "I just gotta find Joey. He's gotta be devastated."

Principal Raditch cleared his throat to regain everyone's attention. "I'm sure you're all just as shocked and saddened by the news as I was. There will be a memorial service on Wednesday; all of you are welcome to attend and share your memories of Mr. Simpson. His presence will be sorely missed here at Degrassi."

As the students took their cue and began to shuffle out, markedly more subdued than how they'd piled in, Paige halted in her tracks. "Should we do something for Emma?" she asked, thinking of the girl for the first time. "I know when my aunt had breast cancer, everyone she'd ever met sent flowers."

"We could do that," Hazel said. "Or a card or something. God, I wonder how Emma's doing right now."

Paige shook her head, unable to even imagine it. "She must be a wreck."

XXX

She wasn't. Or at least, she was doing a fantastic job of pretending she wasn't. Emma gave herself exactly one hour in which to mourn her loss and when the sixty minutes had passed, she dried her eyes, washed her face, and kicked herself into high gear.

Spike wasn't coping very well at the moment and there were a million little things that needed to be done. Calls to be made, flowers to order, a church to book. It was a sadistic replaying of the wedding planning they'd done only months ago. Emma did the best she could in two days, calling on Joey and Caitlin when reinforcements were needed, and now, with twenty minutes to spare before the funeral, she was frozen.

She'd been cleaning out Snake's desk, trying to get his papers all sorted out before the lawyers dropped by to look everything over, and found a list entitled _Things To Do Before I Die_ in the bottom drawer. It had obviously been well maintained – some items were in ink, some in pencil, notes scribbled in the margins as he thought of more goals. Some were scratched out, including _fall in love, get married, _and _have a family._

Emma could feel the tears welling up at the backs of her eyes as she scanned the unmarked items. Luckily, Spike called to her from the bottom of the stairs. "Emma? You ready? We have to go."

Standing, Emma tucked the list into her pocket and hurriedly reorganized the desk's contents. When she was certain it looked right, she took a deep breath and headed downstairs to bury the only father she'd ever known.

XXX

"Snake took every kid to heart," Joey told the crowd. "That was what made him so special. He thought he'd wasted his day if he hadn't helped at least one of them. He said that was what teaching was all about – seeing the kids' potential, usually before they did, and making sure they reached it."

"He was a good man." Brenda, Raditch's secretary, hurried to the podium to add. "He fixed my computer in ten minutes when the repair company had told me it would take two months. Didn't charge me a blessed cent."

"His was the one class I never heard anyone complain about." Marco, speaking as Class President on behalf of the student body, tugged nervously at his tie. "He made everyone laugh. And he had this way of teaching you something so that you didn't even know you were learning."

A few dozen heartfelt speeches later and it was Emma's turn. She squeezed Spike's hand before making her way slowly to the front of the church, hyperaware of every eye being on her. "Um. Well, first of all, I guess I should thank you all for being here. My mom and I … we, uh, really appreciate it.

"It's funny, though," she continued, "Because I always thought it was just us. That we were the only lucky ones. I mean, Mr. Simpson, he just … he swooped into our life and made it better. Instantly. It's good to see how many other people he touched. He would've liked knowing that he helped you all. He lived to see other people happy."

She nodded, her jaw clenching with unrelieved sorrow. "He lived for it. And I know, seeing all of you here today, he would … he would say it was worth it."

XXX

Hours later, Joey shooed the last mourner out the door, double-checked that Jack was sound asleep in his crib, and kissed Emma good-bye, reminding her that Caitlin would be over in the morning so that she could go to school. She watched his taillights disappear down the street and was just about to close the front door when a familiar figure made his way up the walk.

"What are you doing here?"

Sean hesitated, then stepped closer. "I came to … to offer my condolences," he said, his eyes offering so much more than that. "Is it too late to say I'm sorry?"

The words were loaded with meaning and Emma felt her stomach turn with a sudden onslaught of grief. "I'll pass your condolences on to my mother," she said stiffly, and moved to put the door between them.

"Emma." His foot shot out to block her before he'd even realized what he was doing, just as he'd ended up in front of her house without even being aware of where he was headed. "Look. I know things are different now … I know we're not together anymore, but … if you ever need to talk … I'm here."

Her eyes hardened. "You know what, Sean? It's a little ironic that you're the last person today to offer me a shoulder to cry on. Because you're the last person I would ever go to."

Disarmed by the harshness of her tone, he took an involuntary step back, widening the space between them enough for her to make her move. Letting the words fall between them like the curtain on a final act, Emma closed the door.

She battled back tears, telling herself that they were simply a delayed reaction to the day's events. It was only when she was undressing that the list, crumpled and creased, fell out of her pocket and fluttered to the floor.

Emma picked up the worn piece of paper and read it again. There were a few things that would be hard for her to do – earn a pilot's license, drive a motorcycle, eat Japanese food _in _Japan. But most of them were relatively simple. See the Grand Canyon, learn to surf, stop traffic by dancing in the middle of Times Square. 'Chicken dance' was scribbled beneath that one, a detail that made her giggle.

Her own words floated back to her. _He lived to see other people happy._ Mr. Simpson had spent so much of his time bettering everyone else's lives that he hadn't even gotten the chance to accomplish everything he wanted to do in his own. It wasn't fair.

But maybe there was something she could do about it.


	2. It's Who You Take With You

-1**… It's Who You Take With You**

Craig pulled up to the Nelson house the next morning and found Emma waiting at the curb, backpack in hand and suitcase by her side. He kept silent as she loaded her luggage into the backseat and buckled up, then finally cracked. "Aren't you overpacking for school just a tad?"

"Actually." The way she let the word dangle had Craig sitting upright in the driver's seat. "I have a tiny, little favor to ask you."

"I'm probably going to regret saying this," he sighed, backing out into the street, "but, shoot."

She smiled. "Could you drop me off at the bus station?"

"_What_?" Craig slammed on the brakes. "Why?"

"Well, if I don't make the nine o'clock departure, I have to wait around until four, and then I'll be on the bus all night long," Emma explained, being sure to keep her voice calm and logical.

"Emma, you can't just run away," Craig tried to reason with her. "I mean, think about your mother. You can't leave her alone."

"Caitlin's staying at the house for a while," she answered. "And I can't help her right now. I'm … I'm a mess, Craig. Come on. I thought of all people, _you_ would understand. You've lost a father, too."

So that was the secret to her persuasiveness, Craig thought. She knew just the right buttons to press. He could already feel himself caving. "Well … where do you think you're going to go?"

Emma held up a piece of paper. "I've got a list."

Craig shook his head. "Okay. I think I'm gonna need all the details, here. How 'bout a compromise? I'll start driving to school. If you can convince me that this is a good idea, I'll come with you."

"No, you don't have to do that," she protested.

"I want to," he said firmly. "Come on, didn't I prove myself to be a great ditcher the day we found your dad?"

He _had _proved himself to be a great friend, Emma allowed. And it would be nice to have the company, even if it was only for a small portion of her trip. "Okay," she relented, "Start driving."

Obeying, he shot back, "Start talking."

XXX

"We have to talk."

To say that Manny was surprised when Sean accosted her as she stepped off the bus and headed towards Degrassi's main doors would be an understatement. She hadn't exchanged two words with him in … years, she thought. Once he stopped being a part of Emma's life, he'd faded out of hers as well.

"We do?" she repeated, a bit suspiciously. She was racking her brain, but she couldn't think of a single thing they would ever need to discuss. "Why?"

"Emma's not doing very well," Sean informed her.

Manny rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the revelation, Captain Obvious, but I'd figure as much. Her dad just died, give her a break."

She started to walk away, but halted when his hand dropped onto her shoulder. "I think she needs somebody to talk to," Sean insisted, his eyes serious. "And since she'd rather I stumble into quicksand, I think it should be you."

"In case you haven't noticed," Manny bristled, "Emma and I aren't on the best of terms right now."

"Manny." This time, it was his voice that stopped her, not his hand. "She needs someone, okay? I think she'd talk to you, if you tried."

Manny considered. She and Emma had always been there for each other. Even though they hadn't been seeing eye to eye for awhile, if she wasn't by Emma's side during this tragedy, she was pretty sure they could kiss their entire friendship good-bye. And Manny didn't want that. "Okay. Okay, I'll give it a try."

"Great." Victorious, Sean began to steer her towards the parking lot. "I just saw her and Craig pull in a minute ago, they haven't gone inside yet."

"I didn't mean right this instant," she argued, panicking.

He shot her a brief grin. "No time like the present."

XXX

Paige only stopped at Craig's car on her way into school because she wanted to know if Spinner had said anything about her lately. Sure, they were broken up, but the thing was, she was lonely and out of all her recent attempts at relationships, he was beginning to look like the most functional one.

Of course, she spotted the bags in the backseat right away. Paige had a nose for gossip and besides, Craig wasn't exactly known for his subtlety. Hello, he'd been caught cheating on Ashley red-handed. Her radar was practically screaming 'scandal!' as she jerked her chin at the suitcase.

"Going on a trip, are we?" she inquired.

"It's not what it looks like," Craig began, but she cut him off.

"Let me guess. The tragic heroine – that's you, Emma – is running away and the steadfast, loyal friend has agreed to accompany her? Good to know chivalry's not dead." Paige smirked at their shocked expressions. "Hit the nail right on the head, didn't I? It's a gift. You don't have to say anything, I know you're jealous."

She weighed her options for a minute. She could go on her merry way to school and sit through another heinously long day, then go home for a rousing game of stare-at-the-wall. Or she could use her bargaining chip to its full advantage.

"Listen, kiddies," she proposed, "How 'bout I promise not to breathe a word of this trip to, oh, say, Raditch and the truant officer? And in exchange … I come along."

Emma was too busy scraping her jaw off the ground to protest and Craig, for all his recent experience with girls, had never encountered anyone quite like Paige. They both stared, shell-shocked, as Paige swung the door open and let herself into the vehicle.

"Can we move this suitcase?" It wasn't the request she made it sound like, as she was already shoving it farther back. "It's seriously cramping my leg space."

"Paige, I don't think you know what you're doing," Emma said, finally regaining some of her basic verbal functions. "We're not just skipping for a day. I'm going away for a while."

"Perfect." Flashing her brilliant 'I'm a cheerleader and I know it' smile, Paige fluffed her hair. "We'll get a week's head start on summer."

"It's not a vacation," Emma stressed. "Mr. Simpson left behind a list of things he never got to do. I want to do them for him."

Paige yawned. "Sounds great. I'm in."

"Me, too," a new voice entered the conversation. Everyone's head swung around to see Sean and Manny standing at the passenger's side window. Manny flushed when Craig's eyes fell on her and drew in a breath, focusing on her once-best friend. "I want to go with you, Em."

"We both do," Sean interjected, his voice broking no room for argument.

"Well, well, well, the gang's all here." Jay swaggered up to the car and peered inside. "Are we having a self-declared skip day? 'Cause I could be into that."

"None of you know what you're doing," Emma repeated, desperate to get through to them. "I'm leaving. For a few weeks, at least. You can't all just … drop everything and come along."

Jay pushed his way past Sean and Manny and clambered into the seat beside Paige. "Who's got anything to drop?" he questioned, getting comfortable. "You know, Greenpeace, we've got to stop meeting in cars like this."

Emma sighed and lifted her hands up, as if she were washing them of the situation. Craig watched her. "Up to you," he murmured, waiting for a decision.

"We better get going," she told him, working up a half-smile. "Traffic's gonna be a bitch."


	3. On Top of the World

-1**On Top of the World**

_Seattle, Washington_

A seven hour wait at the Canadian/American border hadn't been on anyone's itinerary and the SUV's space limitations and other realities of a road trip were beginning to sink in. With six people and the luggage they'd all been given one hour to pack crammed into the car, there was hardly room to breathe.

In the backseat, Manny leaned her head against the windowpane and sighed before asking, "I know Seattle is supposed to be pretty gray, but doesn't it look like it's about to pour?"

Jay craned his neck to get a glimpse of the ominous black clouds. "Oh, man. Hey, I vote we skip the sightseeing portion of this little trip. Isn't there some rule about heights and lightning storms?"

"We're not skipping the Space Needle," Emma said firmly from the passenger's seat, keeping her eyes on the line of traffic that stretched ahead of them. "It's on the list."

"Uh, Jay?" Paige interrupted before he could start in on the other blond. "You're touching me."

He followed her gaze to where his thigh brushed slightly against hers and chuckled, apparently not offended, as he shifted to break the contact. "My apologies, princess," he said sardonically, "Wouldn't want you getting dirty or anything."

"I just don't want to catch any STDs," she replied, voice sugary-sweet and just as fake as his regret.

"Oh, very original," Jay sneered, but there was a tinge of admiration in his tone. "But don't worry, I've heard they're not so bad the second time around."

"Like I've ever let anyone as filthy as you touch me," she began hotly, her eyes flashing fire as she geared up for a fight.

"Could the two of you please stop bitching at each other for two minutes?" Sean requested, concerned with how tired Emma looked. She needed peace and quiet, not bitching and moaning. "It's not very exciting for the rest of us."

"Well, we wouldn't be so desperate for entertainment if this piece of crap had a _working_ radio," Jay responded.

Craig shot him a glare in the rearview mirror. "I didn't see you offering up a better set of wheels."

"Hey, man, I volunteered my van, but Greenpeace, here," Jay smirked and leaned forward to nudge Emma, "Turned me down for some reason."

"You're disgusting," she said softly, keeping her eyes on the long line of cars that snaked out ahead of them.

Silence fell for a long moment, then Paige muttered, "Ew." All eyes flew to her and she shrugged uncomfortably, her gaze flying from Emma to Jay to the floor. "I just got it, the van thing. Just … ew."

XXX

Jay, who had been trailing behind the others, was the first to notice that Manny had slowed down. "Better pick up the pace, Man-Eater," he advised with a smirk. "Unless you're looking to score some alone time with me."

She ignored him, her apprehensive gaze fixed on the building that speared the gray clouds above them as she said, "I don't think I can do this."

He cursed as she stopped short and he nearly ran into her. "Do _what_? God, Santos, what's your damage?"

"I'm scared of heights, okay?" she snapped. "And I thought I could handle it but the storm is freaking me out and that is a really tall -"

"Shut up," he broke in, cutting off the tangent she was working her way towards. "I didn't ask for your life story. Hey, guys! We're gonna hit the gift shop. Meet us there when you're done, okay?"

Emma looked to Manny for confirmation. Once she'd gotten an assenting nod, she shrugged and the rest of the group continued walking, Paige being the only one to throw a suspicious look back at the two they were leaving behind.

Without another word to her, Jay headed for the gift shop. Manny sighed. If he wanted to be antisocial, then so be it. She made a beeline for the magazine rack and immersed herself in the lifestyles of the rich and famous for the next half hour.

When she finally looked up, she scanned the aisles and found Jay examining a small box of polished stones. As she watched, horrified, he glanced around before sliding it into his pocket.

Manny gasped. "What a _scumbag_," she seethed under her breath as she marched towards him purposefully and dragged him out of the store.

"Whoa," Jay laughed, allowing himself to be tugged along. "Taking charge, I like it. What happened, you just couldn't resist my charms any longer?"

"Why would you steal that stupid case of rocks?" she exploded at him, her eyes flashing. "You don't even need it!"

"Neither does anyone else who would've bought it," Jay reasoned. "Technically, I'm a hero. I'm saving someone their hard-earned money.

Manny crossed her arms. "Return it."

Jay burst into laughter. "What? No way. Besides, I didn't steal it until you shoved me out the door. You're an accomplice here."

The truth of that statement only incensed her anger. "You are such a _sleaze. _Why can't you just be a decent person for two minutes in your life, huh? Why do you have to be such a jerk?"

Jay straightened up. "Look. I steal things. Okay? It's just something I do. I see what I want and I take it. And I don't have to apologize for it or beg for approval from you or anyone else on this stupid trip. Unlike the rest of you, I know who I am and I'm okay with it."

That said, he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Manny alone to mull over his words.

XXX

"Looks a lot different from up here, huh?" Craig asked Emma, joining her at the railing of the observation deck and nodding down to the traffic they'd been stuck in earlier.

He was right. From their vantage point, they couldn't hear the cars' angry honking or feel the frustration that came from being stuck in place. They just saw the winding roads mapped out through stunning greenery and tiny houses, the microsized vehicles gleaming in their pretty ordered lines.

"It's like we're on top of the world," she agreed.

"Mr. Simpson would have loved it," Craig told her, regretting it when she stiffened beside him. He'd only meant to encourage her and this trip, not dredge up painful memories. "I really am sorry, Em."

She nodded and turned her attention back to the view, but not before squeezing his hand gently.

XXX

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Paige inquired, pressing herself close to Sean to better align herself with his line of sight.

Sean jumped. "What? Nothing."

She smirked, knowing full well what - or rather, who - he'd been staring at. And it was most definitely not the bird's eye view of Seattle. "Sure. So, Sean, I'm curious, how'd Ellie take the news that you've run off with your ex-girlfriend?"

"I didn't 'run off' with anyone," he said defensively. "There's six of us here."

Paige's eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. "So you haven't told her yet?"

Sean was too caught off guard by her instinctive guess to even put up a front. "Not quite," he admitted, but hurried to add, "I'm going to call her! I just haven't had the chance."

"You should probably make time pretty soon," Paige advised. "I'm thinking she's not gonna be too happy about your impromptu road trip."

"She'll understand," he said firmly. _She has to_, he added to himself. He would make her see reason when he called her. Tomorrow.


	4. It Could Be Worse

-1**It Could Be Worse**

_Beaverton, Oregon_

"I ask you to drive her to school and you take her out of the country?" Joey's voice, miles away, came through the phone loud and clear. "Do you think Spike needs this right now, Craig?"

"No. But Emma does, Joey." When his stepfather didn't respond, Craig took his silence as clearance to continue. "I've been where she is. I've lost a father, but I still had you. Emma doesn't have that."

There was a long pause before Joey's sigh translated his defeat. "Okay. Caitlin and I will give Spike some help with Jack. But you have to promise me, Craig, that you'll bring her daughter back in one piece."

"I will," he promised. "There's nothing to worry about, Joey. We're all looking out for her."

He was about to end the call when Joey spoke again. "And Craig?"

"Yeah?"

"Despite it being reckless, irresponsible, and a little crazy ... you're doing a good thing."

Craig hung up smiling and made his way back to the picnic table he'd left the others gathered around. Most of them had disbanded in search of vending machines or restrooms, leaving only Paige, who was currently stretched out on one of the benches soaking up the sun. He stopped and stared at the two scraps of aquamarine cloth that constituted her bathing suit.

"Checkin' out the goods?" Paige pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and pinned him down with a stare.

He looked away, determined to play it cool. "Just wondering where you got the suit."

"I grabbed it when you dropped me off at my house to pack," she said, her tone making it clear that she didn't think an explanation was necessary.

"You thought to bring a suit?" He was a little in awe as he thought of the contents of his own duffle bag - a week's worth of clean boxers and t-shirts, one change of jeans, and a toothbrush.

"You brought a guitar," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's _important_."

Paige shrugged. "To each his own, rock star. How'd the phone call go?"

"Better than expected, actually. How 'bout you? You told your parents about this little break from reality yet?"

The mood between them changed instantly. Paige's eyes dropped from his and her voice was stiff as she replied, "I've got Dylan covering for me if they notice I'm gone."

With that, she pulled her sunglasses back into place and turned her head away, effectively ending the conversation. Baffled by the abrupt shift in atmosphere, Craig waited a beat before turning on his heel and leaving her alone.

XXX

Sean hated that he found himself having the exact conversation Paige had predicted. Ellie had picked up on the first ring, as if she'd been waiting for his name to come up on her cell phone. And, damn her journalistic aspirations, the questioning had begun immediately.

"Where are you?"

He'd taken note of the sign at the rest stop's entrance and was fully prepared to answer this question. "Beaverton, Oregon. Nice place, despite the name."

Ellie didn't even pretend to be amused. "And why are you there?"

He hesitated. "Here's the thing, El. Mr. Simpson had a list of all the things he wanted to do in his life and I guess he didn't get to do them all. So a bunch of us found out that Emma was planning a trip so she could complete it for him and we ... decided to ... go along."

"So you really are on a road trip with Emma Nelson," Ellie said flatly. "I was positive everyone was crazy, but ... you are."

"I'm not on a road trip with Emma. Don't make it sound like that," he insisted. "Craig and Paige are here, too. And Manny ... and Jay, although God knows why."

"Oh, good, a family vacation," Ellie quipped, but he could hear the misery in her voice.

"Ellie, I'm sorry," he tried. "I know what it looks like and I'm -"

"How long are you going to be gone?" she interrupted. Trust Ellie to cut straight through to the heart of the matter.

Sean faltered at that. He had no idea how long it might take for Emma to recover and get back to her old self again, but he knew they were all planning to see her through to the end. "I don't ... I'm not sure, Ellie."

He heard her disappointed sigh and, after a long moment, a soft click as she hung up on him. As the dial one echoed in his ear, Sean found himself with an even bigger question than when they would be home: when they got there, would the people they loved still be waiting for them?

XXX

"No. No way. Not gonna happen." Paige stopped in her tracks directly in the doorway of the motel room and refused to budge. "Not in this life."

"Wow, I bet guys don't hear that from you very often," Jay commented, pushing past her and flopping down on the bed.

"Paige, we don't have the money to sleep anywhere else." Struggling to fit her suitcase around the frozen girl, Emma sighed. "Please move."

"You guys can't be serious," Paige continued protesting, although she did step aside to allow the others entry. "This place is disgusting. It _redefines _disgusting."

Jay bounced on the bed a few times. "It's kinda homey."

"Not all of our homes are trailer parks," she snarled.

"Ouch, princess. You should get on your knees if you're gonna blow that low," he shot back without rancor, seemingly unperturbed by her harshness.

"Stop it, both of you," Emma ordered before things could get out of hand. "Listen. We're all exhausted, okay? We just need to calm down and get a good nights sleep."

As if to prove the point, Craig strolled into the room and immediately stretched out on the floor. "I'll pay one of you girls to step on my back," he offered, voice muffled by the way his face was buried in the carpet.

Paige didn't have to be asked twice. He was laying directly in her path to the bed. With a grace only the captain of the Spirit Squad could manage, she climbed nimbly across his spine, kneading the kinks with her toes. Craig groaned as the tension of driving for two days straight melted away from his muscles.

"You have my eternal gratitude," he mumbled when she'd leapt off of him and into the free bed.

"And twenty bucks," she added, slipping beneath the covers. "Oh, my God, when do you these were last washed?"

"Don't think about it," Sean advised, taking a seat at the foot of Jay's bed. "Move over, man."

"Whoa. Whoa, Cameron, what do you think you're doing?" Jay asked, scooting aside.

"Getting some sleep." At Jay's clueless expression, Sean sighed. "Do the math. There's six of us and two beds. Manning's taking up every square foot of floor, so I'm taking one for the team and sleeping with you so the girls don't have to."

"Aw, chivalry's not dead," Paige mocked as Manny and Emma squeezed into the bed with her. "Man, I thought I'd be in university before I got this close to two other girls."

Sean chuckled as he flicked the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. The last thing any of them heard before sleep overtook them was Jay warning, "Foot to head, Cameron. We go foot to head."


	5. In Case of Emergency

-1**In Case of Emergency**

_Castle City, California_

"I spy with my little eye," Paige recited, "Something ... _sharp._ And I'm going to use it to jab my own eyes out unless we stop and get _out_ of this goddamn car."

"Prove it," Jay intoned. He'd been shafted to the backseat for this portion of the trip and was none too happy about the change. Everyone ignored him, a tactic Sean assured them would work in the long run.

"We really should stop soon," Emma told Craig, laying a hand on his shoulder. "We've been driving all day, you probably need the rest."

Sean eyed the contact jealously. Smiling to herself, Paige piped up. "Oh, I don't know, Emma, I've heard pretty good things about Craig's stamina. He could probably go all night."

Craig cleared his throat. "I think you guys are forgetting something here. We don't even have enough money to afford a repeat of last nights little shop of horrors."

"Oh, well, this is just ridiculous," Paige huffed, and spent a minute rustling through her bag before producing a credit card. "Ta-da!"

Sean plucked the card from her fingers. "Are you for real? What's the limit on this thing?"

"There isn't one. My parents gave it to me in case of emergency." Five pairs of eyes stared at her as she shrugged. "This definitely counts."

"Are you sure you don't mind spending it on us?" Emma questioned, unwilling to get her hopes up and then dashed.

"Are you kidding? I'd rather go my entire life without a new purse than stay in another roach motel," Paige declared. "Driver? To the nearest four star hotel."

The idea of a mattress and room service outweighed any and all aversion Craig had to being ordered around by Paige. Grinning, he stepped on the gas and obeyed.

XXX

They'd been in the hotel room for all of two minutes when Paige jumped to her feet. "You know, it's still pretty early, I bet the boutiques we passed are still open. Craig, can I borrow your keys?"

"I'm sorry," he chuckled, "But aren't you the girl who crashed Spinner's wheels into a parked car, totaling both vehicles?"

She glared. "That was on purpose."

"Oh, that makes me feel a lot better," he said, but tossed her the keys. Pleased, she snatched them from the air and dashed out of the room before he could change his mind, with Craig calling after her, "You're welcome."

"Kids these days," Jay clucked, "No manners at all."

Craig shrugged and sprawled out facedown on the bed. "Don't wake me unless the hotel's on fire. On second thought ... don't wake me at all."

Manny stood awkwardly in the center of the room, unsure of what to do with herself. Craig obviously needed peace and quiet to sleep, but she wasn't willing to spend time with Jay and she wasn't sure where she stood with Emma.

Luckily, the other girl stepped up to put her out of her misery. "Well, I think we'll hit the pool," Emma informed the guys, hooking her elbow through Manny's and drawing her towards the door. "See you in an hour for dinner?"

Jay and Sean faced each other over Craig's sleeping body, then Jay threw up his arms. "Alright, man, I spent way too much time with you last night. We need to go our separate ways."

"Couldn't agree more," Sean said quickly. They parted ways at the door, Sean going right and Jay going left, with Sean pausing at the end of the hallway to yell back one important instruction. "Hey, Jay? Don't bother the girls."

XXX

Manny made use of the hotel's heated in-ground pool by floating on her back, closing her eyes against the fluorescent lights that ran through the ceiling. Emma sat at the pool's edge, leaning back on her elbows, dangling her legs in the water.

"So what's next on the list?" Manny asked, more as a way to break the ice than anything else. Coming on the trip with Emma had been a step in the right direction, but they were still far from the easygoing conversations that had once defined their friendship.

Emma didn't even have to think about it. "He wanted to learn how to surf. I figure there's no better place to do that than the California coast, right?"

"That could be fun," Manny mused.

"I guess."

The noncommittal tone drew Manny's attention and she opened her eyes, treading water to better focus on her friend. "Are you okay with that, Em?" she asked, remembering that water was one of Emma's biggest fears. "'Cause, you know, if you're not comfortable, you don't have to do it."

Emma chuckled ruefully. "Sometimes I forget that you know all those stupid things about me. God, Manny. What happened to us?"

Manny blinked. "I don't know, Em. I think we just went in separate directions for awhile."

There was a beat of silence and when Emma spoke again, her voice was thick with uncried tears. "Well, do you think we'll be on the same road again anytime soon?"

"I think we already are," Manny confided with a wink.

Despite herself, Emma chuckled. "Good. 'Cause I could really use a friend right now and you're the best one I've ever had."

"Ditto." Manny could think of nothing else to say, but she was sure the grin on her face got her message across. They fell into a far more comfortable silence than the previous one and Manny resumed her floating, thinking it was strange how much lighter she felt.

XXX

Paige had only been browsing the racks for about fifteen minutes before she was hit with the strangest feeling. She paused in her perusal of a stack of tank tops in every color under the sun and frowned. Was she ... she couldn't be ...

She was bored.

This was a definite shock to her system. Paige's number one true love in life was shopping. It was her hobby, her passion. She could do it alone, in pairs, in groups of twenty five. Being bored during her first opportunity to hit the shops since coming on this trip was absolutely ludicrous.

And yet.

In the past few days, she'd gotten used to being constantly surrounded by people. So what if they weren't people she ever would have deigned appropriate to converse with before now? Jay's constant need to belittle her was annoying, sure, but it helped pass the time. And Sean had a way better sense of humor than she'd ever given him credit for.

Even the girls weren't as bad as she'd thought they'd be. Sure, Manny was a little quiet during the car rides, but Paige could recognize the uncertainty of a woman scorned when she saw it. She should probably talk to Craig about patching things up with the younger girl - in the interest of making the trip less awkward, of course. And Emma, well, there wasn't much Paige could do for her. Her loss was way beyond Paige's area of expertise and although she ached for the other girl, she couldn't do much to ease her pain.

This was bad. Paige wasn't used to considering other people. She'd always operated independently, a survival technique years of parental neglect had made necessary. It had earned her a lot of nasty nicknames amongst her peers, but at least she'd never been close enough to any of them for their insults to really hurt.

"Excuse me, Miss?" The saleswoman who'd been eyeing her like a hawk since she'd entered swooped in and nodded to the shirts Paige was still mulling over. "Would you like to try those on?"

"You know what?" Paige released her grip on the clothes and took a step closer to the exit. "I think I'm all set."

"Are you sure?" The saleswoman looked a little panicky. She knew a potential buyer when she saw one and everything about Paige screamed that she had a piece of plastic in her wallet.

"Positive," Paige said firmly. "I've got places to go, people to see."

As she left the store, purchase-free and more than a little surprised by herself, she realized that she'd fed that line to dozens of people on dozens of occasions, and she'd never meant it until now.


	6. Life's A Beach

-1**Life's A Beach**

_Santa Barbara, California_

"I see water," Paige reported, leaning forward so that her forehead nearly touched the windshield. She'd managed to convince Craig to let her drive the next stretch, a victory she was gleeful over. Something about being behind the wheel with nothing but road laid out before her made Paige feel free. "It's definitely the ocean."

"Congratulations," Sean bit off nervously, eyeing the traffic light ahead as it changed from yellow to red. "Wanna concentrate a little more on the road before you drive us right into it?"

Coming to a stop just in time, Paige stuck out her tongue at him. "Listen, I've never seen the ocean before. Don't ruin the moment."

"Never?" Having grown up in Wasaga, where the sound of the waves crashing ashore lulled him to sleep at night, Sean could hardly fathom it.

"Did I stutter?" At his snicker, Paige arched an eyebrow combatively. "What, was that not gangster enough for you? Should I go buy a ski cap and refuse to take it off, will that up my street cred?"

Before he could retort, she had snatched the cap in question off his head and was hanging it out the window. "Uh-oh, what's Superman gonna do without his cape?"

"Give it back," Sean ordered, raking a self-conscious hair through his curls.

Paige waved the cap around like a flag. "What's the magic word?"

"Light's green," Jay called from the backseat. "You two wanna stop flirting and maybe pay attention?"

Manny drove an elbow into his ribs but it was too late. The words had done their damage, casting an uncomfortable silence over the group that lasted until they reached the shore.

XXX

"Bugs you, doesn't it?"

Emma hadn't even heard Jay approaching, but then, it seemed like his gift in life was sneaking up on her. "Your presence?" she asked, pretending to misunderstand the question. "Yes, it does."

The sand shifted as he plopped to the ground beside her. "Ooh, Emma Nelson grows a backbone," he smirked. "Sounds like a very special episode."

She sighed. All she'd wanted was a moment or two to gather her courage before facing one of her biggest fears, but it was obvious Jay wasn't going to let that happen. "Can you make your point and be on your way, please?"

"I was just thinking, Sean and Paige are getting pretty cozy," Jay obliged, nodding to where the pair in question were laying out their towels and laughing together. "It must really bug you."

"They're both big kids, they're allowed to do whatever they want." She should've left it at that, but she couldn't help but add, "Besides, Sean has a girlfriend."

"Yeah, a thousand miles away," Jay scoffed. "Craig had a girlfriend who had the same homeroom as him and he still cheated."

"Sean wouldn't cheat," Emma reiterated firmly. "He's not like that."

Jay stood and brushed the sand from his trunks. "Whatever gets you through the night, Greenpeace. All I'm saying is, those two are acting way too friendly for people who have no interest in seeing each other naked."

Emma's lip curled in disgust. "You know, some people are capable of just being friends with members of the opposite sex, you perv."

"Yeah? Introduce me," Jay challenged. He was already walking away, tossing over his shoulder, "See you on the water."

XXX

"How's she doing?"

Manny didn't have to ask who Sean was referring to when he bent low and murmured the question so as not to attract the others' attention. "Why don't you ask her yourself?" she returned, not unkindly.

"She won't talk to me. Things have been weird between us since the shooting," Sean informed her. He didn't know if she'd been privy to the details - how Emma had shown up at his apartment to thank him, the kiss they'd shared, the fact that he'd been the one to break away first. "So?"

"She's been trying for the past half hour, but she can't jump up and stay up," Manny confided, gesturing to Emma's distant figure as her friend practiced paddling out on dry land.

Sean squinted. "That's not quite what I meant."

Manny sighed. "Honestly? I think she's avoiding the big issue. She's focusing on this list so much so that she doesn't have to deal with the fact that Mr. Simpson's really gone."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I thought."

Manny waited, but he didn't elaborate. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

"Not if she doesn't straighten her knees quicker," Sean critiqued, watching Emma as she failed, yet again, to gain her balance. "I'm gonna go help her out."

He walked away, leaving her to raise her eyebrows and murmur, "That's not quite what _I _meant."

XXX

"You've got to straighten your knees as soon as you jump up."

Unlike with Jay, Emma had known Sean was approaching. His shadow slanted over her board, a presence that wouldn't be ignored. Biting her lip, she forced herself to meet his gaze. "What?"

"Your knees," he repeated. "If you lock them into place right away, it'll help. G'head. Give it a shot."

She jumped up, a graceful unfolding of tanned limbs and a swirl of blond hair, and immediately centered herself with his advice. "Yes!" she shrieked triumphantly, even as the board toppled in the sand and she began to fall.

He caught her, of course, clamping his arms tightly around her waist until he'd steadied them both. "Much better," he chuckled, "Wanna try again?"

Emma's heart stopped at the words. She realized just how close they were - her legs were trapped firmly between his, his fingers were warm on her bare midriff and their lips were only a breath away. "N - no," she stuttered, disentangling herself. "I think I've got it."

Sean felt her pulling away in more than just the physical sense and cursed inwardly. So much for progress. "Okay. You ready for the real thing?"

"I'm ready."

XXX

"Just take your time, Em, okay?" Sean coached as they paddled out together. "Jay and I will be right there with you and there's no rush. Just wait until the wave feels right."

It took longer than any of them could have anticipated. Jay had already ridden his way back to the beach and even Sean was getting antsy to catch a wave when Emma finally took a deep breath, positioned her board, and sent up a quick prayer.

The water barreled towards her, catching her up in a kind of tunnel, and Emma was terrified. For a brief instant, she considered just letting go and allowing herself be washed ashore. But then it hit her - Mr. Simpson hadn't wanted to be swept along by a power greater than himself. He'd wanted to harness that energy, ride it, feel what it was like to fly for two minutes of his life.

So she jumped up the way Sean had suggested, all braced knees and planted feet, and closed her eyes against the wind that battered her face. It was strange to be atop such a malleable surface, feel it shifting beneath her as the wave barreled towards its destination.

She heard her friends cheering from the beach, heard Sean shouting encouragement from behind her, and for the first time in a long time, Emma felt alive.


	7. What Happens In Vegas

-1**What Happens In Vegas ...**

_Las Vegas, Nevada_

"Blech. I finally get to see the ocean and now this? Nothing but desert for miles on end?" Paige made a truly hideous face. "What a tease."

"That's weird," Jay pondered, "The stalls in the guys' bathroom say the same thing about you."

Craig stifled his laughter. He didn't want to encourage Jay - or infuriate Paige, for that matter - but it was a clever line. Besides, he was in a pretty good mood. They all were. Their day at the beach had left them calm and refreshed, as if something cleansing had been in the water.

"I can see your smirk," Paige informed him but she, too, was grinning good-naturedly. "I'd rather you two go back to barely tolerating each other if you're gonna get all buddy-buddy and then just gang up on me."

"What can I say? You're an easy target," Jay shrugged.

"Don't make me turn this car around," she threatened. She'd convinced Craig to let her keep driving until the next rest stop. There was something about having her hands on the steering wheel and the road stretched out in front of her that made Paige feel free. "It's a long way back to Canada and I know you wanna see Vegas."

"Actually." Sean removed his earphones so that everyone could hear the Eagles blaring before he shut down his iPod. "I don't quite get the Vegas thing. We're not old enough to gamble. What's the point?"

"The list doesn't say anything about gambling," Emma explained, not meeting his eyes, but not ignoring the question either. It was a definite step up from where they'd been a day ago. "It just says Vegas. We can walk the Strip, see a show ..."

"Ooh. What kind of show?" Jay's eyebrows waggled suggestively, causing both Manny and Emma to take half-hearted swats at him. "Just wondering!"

Manny gasped in delight. "Oh my God! Em! Hello? Do you remember what we used to always say we wanted to do if we ever went to Las Vegas?"

It took a minute, but the memory came. "Be witnesses at a wedding! But the priest had to be an Elvis impersonator. We were very specific about that part."

Manny nodded, a gleam in her eye. "What do you say? It could be fun."

"Right. The stupid idea you guys had when you were thirteen is sure to be hugely entertaining for all of us." Jay rolled his eyes. Who would've thought he'd end up being the brains of this operation? "Do you even know what the second easiest thing to do in Vegas _is_?"

"After gambling?" Sean took a moment to consider. "Getting lost?"

"Getting _booze,_" Jay corrected. "Come on. We've been on the road for a solid week. I can't be the only one who wants to unwind a bit."

Everyone looked to Emma for a decision. As the mastermind of the entire trip, she was automatically given leadership rights whenever a choice presented itself. A grin spread slowly across her face. "I say, we're goin' to the chapel."

XXX

"Hey, Cameron, I dare you to stand up when they ask for objections," Jay proposed, leaning across Emma and Manny to deliver the challenge.

From Sean's other side, Paige fixed him with a withering stare. "We're in _Vegas_, idiot. I think they skip most of the formalities."

"I hope so," Craig whispered to her, "I'm bored already."

"You know, for all those cute songs you write, you're not much a romantic," she observed, arching a brow.

"My songs are not cute!" He looked aghast at her choice of adjectives, as if it was a personal attack against him. "They're … hip and edgy."

Paige laughed. "Please. Face it, Manning, since you've been back with Ashley and left all your lady troubles in the past, you've lost your edge. You don't have the 'it' factor anymore."

He looked away. "Yeah. Guess so."

Before she could question his noncommittal response, Jay stood up and announced, "I'll be right back."

Manny grabbed his wrist to keep him in place. "It's starting soon!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly vital to the process, now am I?" He disentangled himself and worked his way out of the pew. "Hey, look, here comes the bride. Enjoy, guys."

The ceremony did not disappoint. The priest did a dead-on Elvis (pre-fatsuit, an added bonus). The bride was giggly on champagne, slumping against her soon-to-be husband for support. He was steadier on his feet, but slurred almost every word he attempted so that even his 'I do' was more of a hiccup.

The group burst out of the chapel in hysterics, showering the newlyweds with rice. When the cab had pulled away, Manny sighed happily. "Well, it was everything I thought it'd be." She looked to Emma. "You?"

"Better," she confirmed. "I never pictured Jay there, tying condoms to the back of a taxi."

"I was fresh out of tin cans," he defended. "And besides, you don't want those two reproducing any more than I do."

"The man's got a point," Sean agreed.

"Oh, I've got a whole lot more than a point." Jay's grin belied the fact that he was very, very pleased with himself. "I picked us up a little something else while I was hitting the convenience store. Come on, it's a surprise."

Exchanging wary glances, they followed him back to the hotel room.

XXX

"_Alcohol_?" All of Emma's dismay was apparent in that one word. Her brown eyes were wide with shock and a tinge of disappointment. "You bought us alcohol?"

"Technically, a fifty-year-old businessman bought it," Jay explained. "But yes. I thought we could all do with a little tension release."

"I don't know why she looks so shocked," Paige said to Manny, crossing her arms. "It's _Jay_, Degrassi's favorite juvenile delinquent since Sean converted."

"I couldn't have asked for a greater honor," the boy in question murmured, not looking up from his self-appointed job of bartending. The liquor flowed smoothly from the bottle into the six Dixie cups he'd lined up on the window sill. "So? Who's in?"

"I, for one, think it's the greatest idea he's had yet," Craig declared, taking a swig from his cup and then lifting it into the air. "May I propose a toast? To … to the trip of a lifetime. And to the man who inspired it."

He didn't have to wait long for the rest to join him. Emma took her cup from Jay's hands a bit reluctantly and Paige wrinkled her nose after sniffing the contents but no one refused. "To Simpson," Jay pronounced, downing his first shot. "May he rest in peace."

"And may we find ours," Sean added, his eyes on Emma. Tipping her glass to him in acknowledgement, she drank.

To Be Continued …


	8. Stays In Vegas

-1**... Stays In Vegas**

Hours later, Paige and Craig stumbled onto the balcony, which none of them had had the good sense to lock before commencing the festivities. Paige fell, quite literally, into one of the two deck chairs while Craig collapsed to the ground.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Craig proposed, propping himself up on the iron railing.

"I love secrets!" Paige gushed. "Can't keep 'em, but I love 'em! Just like boys."

"I asked Ashley to stay," he confessed, ignoring her ramblings. "Begged her, actually. And she still went to London."

"You and Ashley are so cute together," was Paige's response. "And it's so cute how you've been so sad since she left."

"She dumped me." Craig shook his head to clear it of the memory. "I chose her over Manny and it still wasn't enough. You women, you're never satisfied. Ever notice that?"

"Maybe you guys will get back together," she suggested brightly.

"I don't think so." He shook the prescription bottle in his pocket so that the pills rattled. "She wanted me to take my meds all the time. I don't _want_ to take them. They make me feel like a robot."

"I'm not like my dad, either." Her head shook empathetically. "Nope, nope, nope. I mean, who wants to work twenty four hours a day? And who forgets their kids' birthday. Hello, Earth to Stan, you know?

"Dylan and I ran away once." Paige knew she was babbling, but she was helpless to stop the flow of words from her mouth. Alcohol brought out the honesty in her, which was why she usually avoided it. It had only ever led to trouble. "We missed dinner and spent the night at Terry's and he never even noticed."

"If I'd ever missed dinner, my dad probably would've killed me," Craig sighs. Paige has heard enough rumors to know he's not kidding. "I used to _wish _he'd ignore me."

"Is that why you're supposed to be on the medicine? They think you'll end up like him?"

He nodded. "But I keep telling them, I'm _not _him. I'm _me_. You know? But they say there's still a risk."

"Everything's a risk," Paige pointed out. "Surfing was a risk for Emma. This trip is a risk for all of us. Hey. Risk, risk, risk. It sounds funny when you say it over and over again. Try it."

"Risk, risk, risk," Craig parroted. She was right. The word felt wrong on his lips, his mouth moved over the consonants with difficulty, his tongue's maneuverings slowed. "Risk, risk, risk."

Smiling, he repeated the word until he lost track of what it meant.

XXX

"Have you seen Craig?" When her question went unanswered, Manny sneered and leaned closer to the object of her interrogation. "Hey. I'm talkin' to you."

From his position on the bed, Jay leaned over and turned the lamp on. "I think that mean's it doesn't know."

"Ow, that's bright." Manny blinked once, twice, before focusing in on him. "Jay. Do _you_ know where Craig is?"

He pretended to think. "Well, given that we're in a hotel room the size of a refrigerator, I'd have to guess the bathroom, the closet, or the balcony."

Destination in mind, Manny pulled herself to her feet, a task she remembered being somewhat easier a few hours ago. "Come on," she invited, offering Jay her hand. "Help me look."

He grumbled a bit at being pulled away from his pile of pillows and a night of observing everyone else playing the fools for once, but still wrapped his hand securely around her much smaller one and followed. Manny led him in a weaving, stumbling path to the bathroom.

"I don't see him," she whined, teetering on her feet.

With a long-suffering sigh, Jay steadied her. "You haven't even looked yet."

She brightened instantly. "Oh, yeah. Okay, gimme a sec."

Jay lifted himself onto the counter and settled in for the show. Manny's first attempt was to throw open the shower's sliding door - a good guess, but not one that yielded the boy she was searching for. Her next tries - the hamper, the cabinet beneath the sink, and, inexplicably, the top of the toilet tank - all proved to be just as fruitless.

Manny's bottom lip thrust out in a pout. "I can't find him," she complained. "And I really need to talk to him."

"Then you shouldn't give up so easily," Jay said, remarkably keeping a straight face. It was probably awful that he was getting so much joy out of the girl's obvious misery, but hey, at least he wasn't taking advantage in some other way. Hiding his grin, he nodded encouragingly as she resumed her search and headed for the miniature trashcan.

It was turning out to be quite an interesting night.

XXX

Emma was a messy drunk.

Sean watched in dismay as the normally pulled together girl stumbled towards the counter that held the almost empty bottle of vodka. As small and inexperienced as she was, she hadn't needed half the alcohol she'd been pouring in to her system. She tripped over her own two feet and giggled madly, reaching out to grasp a chair for support.

He hurried to be of some assistance. "Em? You okay?"

"Sean!" Her eyes, when she turned them to his, were bright and glassy. "Fine, I'm fine! Just gettin' another drink."

"Allow me." Bypassing the vodka, he filled her Dixie cup with tepid water and presented it to her with a flourish. "Here you go."

Frowning, she pushed the cup away from her lips. "I'm not an idiot, you know. Can I have a _real _drink?"

"Don't you think you should stop for the night?" Sean tried to make his words as much of a suggestion as possible. He knew firsthand how Emma detested being told what to do. "I feel like drinking so much isn't going to solve your problem and ..."

"My _problem_?" Emma gave a mirthless laugh. "For once in my life, I don't have a problem. I have a dead dad. And there's nothing I can do or say to fix that. So if I want to have a few drinks, I think that's my right, don't you?"

Emma was apparently also an angry drunk. Of course, it was somewhat understandable. There were a million things in her life that would send anyone else into a screaming fit, a boatload of tragedies that other people would cry and rant and throw vases over. But that wasn't Emma's usual style.

Before Sean could try to reason with her, she continued. "I mean, I'm old enough to bury my father. I'm old enough to have a gun shoved in my face. I think that means there's _nothing_ I can't do."

"You can't do _this_," Sean, at the end of his rope, said forcefully, shaking the bottle for emphasis. "You don't get to self-destruct, Emma. Sorry. But you've got too many friends here who care about you and a mother who needs you to come back home and be her daughter and I am _not _going to let you do this to yourself."

He thought, for a moment, that he'd gotten through to her. She was silent and wide-eyed, staring at him as if she'd really heard. Then she smirked, her lip twisting in a move that was so characteristically Jay that he blinked. "Gee, that was some pep talk," she remarked, her tone acidic. "I'd thank you but I think we both remember how that went last time."

Sean flinched enough that she was able to shake his bracing grip off her upper arm. "Emma -" he tried, "I didn't mean to hurt you. Ellie was going to be home and -"

"I get it," she cut in, reaching around him and grabbing the bottle. Just to spite him, she twisted the cap off and chugged the contents, inwardly gagging at the taste. "Here's to dead ends. Cheers."

Defeated, Sean stepped back and let her brush past him. In the morning, she'd probably regret most of what she'd done, but that didn't help him now as she staggered as far away from him as she could get.


	9. Across the Great Divide

-1**Across the Great Divide**

_Sedona, Arizona_

"Can someone please make the sun stop shining?" Groaning, Paige lowered her baseball cap so that it hid her face. "It hurts."

"Let me get right on that, princess," Jay responded, not taking his eyes off the road. Craig hadn't been too keen on the idea of letting Jay drive, but then again, Craig was hardly in a position to argue, as he was currently nursing the worst hangover of his young life.

The mood in the car had changed drastically from the high spirits they'd all experienced yesterday. No one had spoken since dragging themselves from sleep and arranging their aching bodies into semi-comfortable positions in the car. Jay, apparently the only one of them who could hold his liquor, had fallen into the role of mother hen, doling out Advil and pillows and pulling to the side of the highway every hour so everyone could breathe fresh air and (in Paige's unfortunate case) retch into the bushes.

He would have laughed at the oddity of it all if sharing a vehicle hadn't meant that he, by default, was as miserable as the rest of them. Paige, her pallor still an unsightly green, reclined in the middle row of seats as best she could, clutching her stomach. Beside her, Manny had been passed out for most of the day, awakening every few stops with a dazed look in her eyes to ask what time it was.

Emma, for once, had relinquished all map-navigating and direction-reading responsibilities to Sean and crawled into the backseat to curl up in the fetal position. Her head rested in Craig's lap, a circumstance Sean had been grumbling over for the past three hours.

"Cameron, I swear, one more mutter from you and I'm making you walk your ass the next hundred-plus miles," he finally threatened, having had quite enough of the other boy's glowering.

Sean wasn't phased in the least. "I'd like to see you try. I'd probably beat you to the Canyon and, when you finally made it there, toss you in."

The cartoonish mental image of Sean flinging him into the abyss made Jay chuckle. "Why don't you try telling Greenpeace how you feel, instead of always skulking around and glaring when she shows anyone else the least bit of attention?"

Sean shot him a sideways look. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware Dr. Phil was with our studio audience today. I'm honored!"

"Bite me," Jay proposed sweetly, changing lanes as they flew past a sign that advertised Sedona being 248 miles away. "All I'm sayin' is, we haven't even hit the midpoint of our grand adventure. If you want to keep taking all these baby steps and cautious little moves, fine, go for it, but that doesn't mean someone else isn't going to step in and actually offer her something."

"I'm with Ellie," Sean shot back, directing his gaze out the window at the flat scenery that whizzed by.

Jay's snort said it all. "You're with Ellie the same way I'm with Alex. As in, I'm not, but I sure wish it was that easy."

That sounded just about right to Sean's ears, but there was no way he was going to let Jay know that. "Whatever, man," he said instead, slipping his iPod headphones on. "Just drive."

XXX

"I feel a lot better," Paige decided, taking a seat on the dirt ledge from which they were admiring the view. "This place is ..."

"Beautiful," Craig supplied, snapping his hundredth shot of the Canyon.

"Inspiring," she finished, sending him a smile.

The sun caught her hair and made it shine as she tilted her head to meet his eyes. Craig's artistic eye couldn't pass up the opportunity to lift his camera and capture her expression.

"Hey! I'm still hungover here," she protested, hiding her face, but she was laughing. "This is so _not _a Kodak moment."

"Come on, work it, the camera loves you, baby," Craig grinned, his shutter clicking wildly. Privately, he thought she looked even better today than she usually did; without a hint of makeup, her hair tossed into a messy bun, a sweatshirt tied haphazardly around her waist. "Now vamp it up, less Aniston, more Jolie."

"You're such a weirdo," she giggled, pushing the camera away. "And besides, everyone knows Jen's ten times better than Angelina. What a hussy."

"Like you've never broken a heart or two," Craig teased, finally relenting with the photography. "Better men than Brad Pitt have sobbed into their pillows at night because of you, Ms. Michelchuk."

"Please." Paige rolled her eyes. "There _are_ no better men than Brad."

Craig took a seat beside her, letting his legs swing in tandem with hers over the abyss. "Know what I wish?" he asked casually, setting his camera down at a safe distance from the edge.

"That you were Brad?" Paige guessed.

"Besides that," he chuckled, but his eyes were serious now. "I wish ... I had the courage to toss my pills to the bottom of this place."

Quieting, she laid a hand on his and squeezed it gently. "You'll throw them away when you're ready," she assured. "And no matter where that happens to be, don't worry ... it'll still make a statement."

XXX

Manny's first thought upon waking up was that she'd died and gone to Heaven. She wasn't even sure if she believed in such a place, but where else could she be when all she could see was the brightest, clearest sky imaginable stretching out in every direction?

Then she sat up and took in the rest of her surroundings. She was still in Craig's car, first of all, so that pretty much ruled out Heaven or anything that even closely resembled it. The sunroof had afforded her the original view, but once she glanced around, she saw a lot more than sky.

There was also dirt as far as the eye could see. Dirt a color she'd never seen, a deep orangey-red that reminded her of pottery and handmade tools and other ancient things. People milled about the area, kicking up little clouds of dust, and as Manny strained her eyes to peer through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of the edge of the world.

"Hey, you're finally awake." Manny winced at the volume of Emma's voice and the other girl smiled sympathetically. "Yeah, I feel the same way. Here, drink some water, it helps."

"Ugh." Forcing herself to chug the Poland Spring bottle, Manny shuddered as its chilled contents slid down her throat. "Never again will I follow along with one of Jay Hobart's bright ideas."

"You and me both, sister," Emma agreed. "Come on, you wanna get a closer look at the Canyon? Everyone else went on ahead."

It turned out, the edge of the world wasn't as abrupt as she'd thought. Sure, the fall would hurt or, if you missed enough of the natural ledges on your way down, kill you, but it wasn't just earth, then nothing. The edges of the Grand Canyon were jagged, manmade staircases of sorts, the paths carved into them narrow and winding but still walkable.

It was breath-taking. Manny stood as close as she dared, the dirt soft and malleable beneath her Sketchers, and concentrated on memorizing every detail of the beauty spread out before her.

"Manny." Jay cleared his throat to get her attention, something he already had from the other four, who were eyeing them curiously. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

"Me, too," she said, punching his shoulder lightly. "That's the last time I let you talk me into anything, Jay. It was fun at the time, but –"

"Exactly." Eyes round and earnest, he nodded. "It was fun, and it was special, and it meant a lot to me, but it's not going to happen again, Manny. It can't. Sex should be saved for people who truly love each other and I just don't feel that way about you."

Manny was vaguely aware of her friends' shocked reactions. She saw Emma's eyes bug out of her skull, watched Paige drive her elbow into Sean's ribs, noted how Craig nearly choked. But mostly, she was focused on Jay as his words sank in. "What? Are you saying me and you … we … oh, my God."

He managed to keep his face serious for an impressive sixty seconds, then burst into a fit of laughter. "Oh, man. Oh, wow. I really had you all going."

It took a minute, but everyone else joined in his humor – even Manny, who was giddy with relief. They stood looking down at this place that shouldn't exist but did and laughed because laughing was so much better than crying and their heads had hurt today enough to last them all a lifetime.


	10. A Little Off the Map

**A Little Off the Map**

_Highway 160_

"You're lost," Manny said flatly. She wasn't surprised, but she _was_ vaguely irritated, given that she'd been saying they should stop and ask for directions for the past four hours.

"I'm not lost," Jay insisted. He'd been saying _that_ for the past four hours, too, and it had had just as little effect as Manny's mantra had on their current situation.

"Well, you don't know where you're going," she replied, flipping the glove compartment open in search of the map.

Jay reached over blindly and shut it, making her yelp and hurry to pull her fingers out of harm's way. "It's not in there. You've checked a million times."

"Well, it has to be _somewhere_," Paige chimed in from behind them. "You've only been driving for, like, a day of this whole trip. You can't possibly have messed up already."

"I think you're underestimating him," Manny remarked with a roll of her eyes.

"_Someone_ is," Jay sing-songed, pinning her with a dirty look.

Manny huffed, but didn't bother to respond. She'd thought they were on okay terms after the joking stunt he'd pulled at the Grand Canyon, but he was seriously getting on her last nerve. There was no reason for them to have been driving in circles for so long. Any sane person would've given up by now and asked for help.

"I'm with the girls on this one, man," Sean voiced from the backseat. "I mean, last time I checked, Utah didn't have a lot of white water rafting to offer."

Jay snorted. "Last time you checked? You do a lot of research on the states in you day, Cameron?"

"Har dee har har. You know what I mean," the other boy responded. "We were supposed to be at the Colorado River five hours ago and, looking around, I don't even see anything that closely resembles a body of water."

"You're looking for the wrong kind of body, man." Jay shook his head. "Paige is right next to you, can't that keep you occupied for another couple hours? Or is she losing her touch?"

Paige slapped the back of his head lightly. "You don't know anything about my touch, you perv! Shut your trap."

"Ow," he complained, using both hands to shield any more blows. "I think I just felt it."

"Hey, hands on the wheel!" Manny shrieked, reaching out to grab on in case Jay's reflexes weren't up to speed.

"Calm down," he laughed, batting her hands away and taking control of the vehicle. She glared and opened her mouth to berate his lack of focus, then clamped it shut, trapping down a scream as he flew across three lanes and careened onto an exit.

A few death-defying moments later, they had slowed to a lawful speed and their heart rates had returned to a normal rhythm. Jay flicked the blinker on and cleared his throat. "Well. We're here."

Manny's head shot up. Her adrenaline was still pumping from the Nascar moment they'd just had and she was raring to go. "We are _not _in Colorado," she protested hotly, "And if you would get your _head_ out of you're _a_-"

Jay interrupted her smoothly, "I never said anything about Colorado."

"It's on the list," five voices chorused.

"The list, the list." Jay made a gesture that showed exactly what he thought of the list. "That thing is running all of our lives. All due respect to your stepfather, Emma, but really. We need to do something that wasn't a dead man's dream."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Everyone was silently preparing themselves for Emma's inevitable outburst at Jay's insensitivity. She surprised all of them – herself included – with what came out of her mouth. "Maybe you're right, Jay," she acquiesced. "Maybe we do need to do something different. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, what better place for a pit stop," he proposed, grinning, "Than four places at once?"

XXX

_The Four Corners – Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona_

Paige immediately settled herself down on the ground and positioned her limbs so that they each lay in a different state. "Oh my God, you guys!" she exclaimed, dizzy with excitement, "I'm in four places at once! This is so cool!"

"You sound like a five year old," Jay informed her, but he sounded amused and he was already spreading himself out on the ground in a similar fashion. "And, look, I got us to Colorado after all."

"The bottom corner of the state doesn't count," she informed him. "But you might just earn points for this anyway. It's fun. And I could get a tan."

"Yeah, about that?" Craig stood over her and used his foot to nudge her midsection gently. "You can't just lay there all day, you know. Other people want to experience being ubiquitous, too."

"Big word, rock star." She beamed up at him. "Ms. Kwan would be so proud."

He made a face and nudged her again. "Move it or lose it, Michelchuk."

She relinquished her position to him just as Jay stood up, allowing Manny to take his place. Craig had only marveled for a minute before turning his head to the side and meeting Manny's gaze head on.

"Uh …" He fumbled for something to say. They'd been neatly avoiding each other the entire trip – it had worked out so nicely, in fact, that he'd begun to believe he would never have to face up to everything that had happened with her. "It's weird, isn't it?"

Manny wiggled her fingers and toes experimentally, inwardly in awe of how each resided in a separate area code. "Yeah," she agreed, tearing her eyes away from his. Despite everything that had happened between them, she could still get lost in the deep brown of Craig's gaze. "Weird."

Luckily, Emma saved them from any further awkwardness by offering Manny an outstretched hand. "My turn," she claimed, pulling the other girl to her feet. Manny mouthed a 'thank you' to her friend as she surrendered her spot.

At the same time, Craig switched with Sean and wandered off to check out the gift shop with the others. Hyperaware of Emma's close proximity, Sean settled himself on the ground and closed his eyes.

Emma took advantage of his temporary blindness to study him. She didn't remember the details of their drunken night in Vegas, but she knew she'd been terrible to him. Even if she hadn't retained any memory of it at all, she would've been able to tell by the wounded look in his eyes, the way he'd kept a careful distance at the Grand Canyon.

Strange, how Jay had chosen the Four Corners for his stress-relieving destination. It mirrored perfectly how Emma felt on a regular basis: in several conflicting states once and not being able to find the right words to say in any of them.

"How does it feel?" Sean questioned, turning his head and opening his eyes to peer at her inquisitively.

Shocked that he was initiating a conversation with her, Emma took a moment to answer. "It feels … like my life," she admitted with a mirthless chuckle.

Sean quirked an eyebrow, a habit he'd picked up from Paige. "Care to elaborate?"

Emma gestured to her prone position. "In a million places at once and I don't belong in any of them." He didn't say anything. "I'm sorry, you know?"

"For what?"

"For being so awful to you the other night." She shrugged, a little helplessly. "You didn't deserve it. You've been nothing but nice to me and I was … a bitch. A stupid, drunk –"

"You know," Sean cut in. His hand stretched across Utah and took hers in Colorado. Emma stared at their intertwined fingers, thinking it had to mean something that no matter how far away she felt, Sean could always reach her. "That's the first time you've ever apologized to me."

She smiled. "Guess this trip is doing at least one of us some good."

Sean stood, pulling her along with him, and pointed to the gift shop's entrance, where Paige was giving Jay a piggyback much to Manny and Craig's delight. "I'd say it's doing all of us some good."


	11. This Will Be An Adventure

**This Will Be An Adventure**

_Colorado River_

"Up and at 'em, up and at 'em!"

Without opening his eyes, Jay removed the pillow from under his head, lobbed it in the direction of Paige's too-cheerful voice, and laid his head back down on the mattress in the hope of obtaining five more minutes of sleep. A small smirk crawled across his lips as he heard a soft thump and Paige's indignant, "Hey!"

"Nice shot," Craig admired. An early riser by nature, he'd been awake for an hour, strumming his guitar in the hotel's lobby – much to the annoyance of the desk clerk. He perched on the edge of Jay's bed and bent over to retie his shoelace.

"Don't encourage him," Paige warned, hands on her hips. "We agreed to be up twenty minutes ago so that we could have a full day on the river."

"Who's this 'we'?" Jay demanded sleepily. "I never signed a contract."

"Only because we're all aware that you can't read and we didn't want to make you feel bad," Paige retorted sweetly, before winding up and bringing the pillow down on his head with a resounding _thwack_.

"Ow!" Jay sprang into an upright position, cradling his head. "Okay. That hurt a little bit."

"Good arm," Craig complimented. "Somebody works out."

Paige flexed playfully. "You boys think cheering is just clapping and yelling, but there's a little bit of muscle involved."

"Hey, as long as the skirts are short, I support it," Jay leered, finally rolling himself out of bed. "Where're the others?"

"Downstairs. There's a little café in the lobby that's serving doughnuts and coffee, in case you boys need to fortify yourselves," Paige informed them. "And if not, you can always help me bring my bags out to the car."

"Well, unfortunately, princess, I'm starving, but I'm sure Craig here would love to help." Jay gave the other boy a bolstering pat on the back and gestured to the three oversized suitcases waiting at the doorway. "I think that's all the lady's stuff, so, uh, better hop to it, bellboy."

"He's quick," Craig observed as Jay made his escape. Then his eyes fell on the waiting bags. "Those are really all yours?"

"Hey, unlike some of us, I haven't had to do laundry once yet," Paige bragged.

"Which is a good thing, considering you probably don't know how to work a washing machine. Am I right?"

She bristled, unwilling to admit that, yes, he was absolutely on the nose. "Grab a bag and start hauling, buster. We're leaving in ten."

"Aye-aye, Captain," he murmured, saluting her retreating figure. "Hey! Save me a chocolate doughnut! And a coffee! Black!"

Paige lifted a hand in the air to signal that she'd heard. With the promise of breakfast lifting his spirits, Craig grabbed the two nearest suitcases and started packing.

XXX

"Whose idea was this again?"

Emma stared in trepidation at the river that was rushing wildly along its path, bubbling over bedrocks, foaming into a thick white lather every time it scraped along the granite surfaces. The foam made the river look like gaping mouth, rabid and drooling at the prospect of being fed more victims. Emma gulped.

"I think it was _your_ brainchild, oh fearless leader." Jay inclined his head towards her to whisper the words. His smirked seemed to crawl through her ears and dig into her brain, making her head hurt all the more. "Ready for action?"

"You guys must be the eleven o'clock group," a masculine voice called out before Emma could respond.

"Well, we were supposed to be the ten o'clock group, but some of us can't get our asses in gear," Paige responded, sticking her tongue out at Jay before turning to face the newcomer. "I'm Paige and you're … cute. Wow. Hi."

Their appointed tour guide chuckled at her candor. "I'm Aaron. Nice to meet you, Paige. Now do any of you have any experience on the water?"

"We've surfed," Jay volunteered. He pushed Emma slightly forward. "Emma here is practically a pro."

"Great. And you can all swim? Perfect. Let's grab some gear and get started." Aaron clapped his hands briskly and led the way towards a small clearing where their raft awaited. "You guys are gonna love this."

"I love it already," Paige murmured, falling back a step to get a good view as he strode ahead of them. "Aren't you a bit young for this gig?"

"I'm nineteen," Aaron informed her with a grin. "Fully certified, though, so have no fear."

Paige nodded. "Nineteen, fully certified … available?"

"As of recently," he confirmed. "My girlfriend broke it off about a month ago. Said she couldn't handle anymore outdoor adventures."

"That's too bad," Paige said, entirely unsympathetic. His ex's loss had the potential of being her gain. "Well, Aaron, I can handle all the adventure you throw my way."

Jay shuddered and mimed throwing up, much to Sean's amusement. Manny, too, giggled and whispered to Emma, "We're not even on the water yet and I already feel sick."

Hearing the comment, Aaron glanced over his shoulder and sent his grin directly Manny's way. "And what's your name?"

"Manny," she answered, taking the hand he offered for balance while she climbed into the raft. "Thanks."

His eyes, a brighter blue than the water they were about to enter, shone. "My pleasure."

Paige harrumphed pointedly as she waited for similar assistance and received none. Finally, she jabbed Craig in the ribs, breaking him out of the trance he'd been in as he watched Aaron openly admire Manny. "Hello? A hand, please?"

"Oh. Sure." Craig hauled her by the elbow into the raft and resumed keeping a watchful eye on the flirtation. "Uh, Aaron, was it? Shouldn't you be concentrating more on the river? I mean, I'm no expert, but isn't that what the guide is supposed to be looking at?"

Jay murmured a soft 'oh-oh', but everyone else tactfully ignored Craig's small dig. Taking the hint, Aaron turned to a spiel about the correct way to paddle and push off rocks.

Emma turned her paddle around in her hands, her palms damp with nerves. It was crazy that for the second time in a week, she was throwing herself into an unpredictable body of water, paralyzing fear be damned. If that wasn't tempting fate, she didn't know what was.

"Okay, guys, it'll be smooth sailing for about five minutes and then we'll reach a rougher portion of the river. You'll need to brace yourselves now and be ready to paddle hard. Try to avoid the rocks but if you can't, just remember what we went over. And don't worry." Aaron shot Manny a reassuring look as she bit her bottom lip anxiously. "I do this for a living. You're in good hands."

Five minutes later, they were in the exact situation he'd predicted. The water pulsed under the raft and gushed atop of it, the waves unexpectedly cold when they made contact with the skin. Manny and Paige's shrieks soon filled the air as Emma and the boys struggled, with Aaron's shouted guidance, to navigate the river.

But as busy as Paige was trying to shield her hair from the spray and keep herself in her seat, she still noticed how Manny clung to Aaron's lifejacket instead of her own. And she noticed Craig noticing, too.

She wasn't sure what bothered her more: that Aaron was paying more attention to Manny than her, or that Craig was doing the same thing.


	12. Midnight Strolls and Moonlight Dances

**Midnight Strolls and Moonlight Dances**

_Stockholm, Kansas_

At first, no one noticed anything was wrong.

They'd decided to drive straight through the long row of middle states that stood between them and Texas and were dozing in their seats until their turn to drive came. When the car slowed to a stop with Paige at the wheel, they all sleepily assumed they were stopping for gas or that perhaps it was time to switch.

"Oh, no, no, no," Paige whimpered. "Damn it."

The curse brought Emma, who had been trying and failing to relax for hours, to attention. "What is it?" she asked, dragging her hands through her hair and arranging the locks into a loose ponytail. "What's wrong?"

Paige groaned and thumped her forehead against the steering wheel. "We're out of gas."

Emma's jaw dropped. Then she turned around and latched onto the first body she could reach, which happened to be Craig's. "Wake up," she said urgently, shaking his knee. "Wake up. We've got a serious problem."

"Unless someone's bleeding, it is _not _a serious problem," he groused, reluctant to rouse himself from sleep without good cause.

"Unless you want me to make you bleed, you can just go back to sleep," Paige threatened, glowering at him. At Emma's astonished look, she shrugged. "What? He's not going to be any help. He might as well not waste my – _our_ time."

Paige's acidic tone was like a bucket of cold water being splashed over his face. It forced Craig to fully wake up in order to brace himself for whatever attack she launched next. "You know," he remarked, "You've been nothing but snappy to me since rafting. Are you mad at me or something?"

"Me? Mad at you? Please," she scoffed. "Get over yourself, rock star."

Craig shut up, but was inwardly simmering. He wasn't just imagining it and he wasn't just catering to some kind of ego trip. Paige had gone out of her way to ignore him or make snide comments about him ever since they'd left the Colorado River. It was different than her running banter with Jay – it was deliberate, hurtful, and not all done in a joking manner.

"Come on, Emma," Paige ordered, unbuckling and swinging open her door. "I saw a gas station about a mile back."

Emma fumbled for her door handle, having not been prepared for Paige's command. "Paige, I don't think that's the best idea."

Irritated at her authority being questioned, Paige put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. "Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you're barefoot," Craig pointed out, following her lead and stepping out of the car. "And for another, it's dark, we're in the middle of nowhere, and you're girls."

"Gee, is that your professional opinion?" Paige returned scathingly.

Craig rolled his eyes and tried not to rise to the bait of getting in a fight. "Come on, Paige, don't be ridiculous. You've seen the horror movies. You two going for help is like putting a sign around your neck advertising yourselves to every creep in a five mile radius."

She didn't want to admit that he was right, but her fear of death and dismemberment at the hands of a psycho outweighed her stubbornness. Paige jammed her feet into the flip flops she'd discarded and sighed. "Fine. You can come. But you walk ten feet behind us and you don't talk."

Tossing an apologetic glance over her shoulder, Emma fell into step with Paige. "Oh, sure," Craig called out, "But you're not mad at me. Not at all."

He shook his head at the absurdity of the opposite sex. But it was better to subject himself to awkward humiliation than to have it on his conscience that they'd been slaughtered due to his pride. Waiting until the requisite paces were between them, he followed.

XXX

Jay awoke with far more room than he'd gone to sleep with and realized with a start that Craig was missing. And damned if he didn't start to panic immediately, thinking that something had happened to the boy who, before this trip, he hadn't even known.

Realizing that Emma and Paige were gone only added to his fear and had him scrambling to wake Sean and Manny. "Guys. Guys, get up. Something happened. We're stopped. They're gone."

Manny stirred to life with a delicate stretch. "Who's gone?"

"Emma." Sean, who apparently had some kind of Spider sense where the object of his affection was concerned, was already scrambling his way to the driver's seat. "The gas gauge is on empty."

Following his train of thought, Jay hopped out of the car and went around to the back, rummaging in the trunk before calling out, "Yeah, the tank's gone. They must have gone to refill somewhere."

"Thank God they brought Craig," Manny said, shivering as she stared into the dark, deserted road their friends must have set out on. "Think of what could have happened otherwise."

"Yeah, and think of what could happen now." With the knowledge that everyone was okay, Jay relaxed back into his usual antics, wiggling his brows suggestively. "Ménage a trois, anyone?"

"Disgusting." Crinkling her nose, she swatted at him. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"And get your ass over here and help me," Sean piped up. He tossed Jay a flashlight he'd found in the glove compartment and indicated the radio panel. "Aim that, okay? I wanna see if I can fix this stupid radio once and for all."

Jay scoffed. "Yeah, okay, MacGyver, with what? A paper clip and one of Manny's barrettes?"

"Hey, if I could hotwire a car when I was twelve, I can definitely fix a radio now," Sean said confidently. "Just hold the light steady."

"Just hold the light steady," Jay mocked under his breath, but did as he was told. Any improvement that could be made to their current listening status – silence, static, or their own bickering – would be a welcome one.

XXX

It took Emma the entire mile to the gas station and half the walk back to drag out of Paige the reason for her foul mood. And when she finally did, she was sure she'd heard wrong.

"You're _what_?" she said loudly, coming to an abrupt stop.

Paige glanced behind them to check that Craig hadn't gotten any closer, then propelled Emma back into motion, hissing, "I'm _jealous._ Okay? You happy now, you gonna get off my back for a few minutes?"

"Not in this century," Emma declared, doing her best to keep herself from grinning. It was just too cute, Paige uncharacteristically freaking out over a boy not liking her enough. "I really don't think you have anything to worry about, you know, I'm pretty sure he's completely over Manny."

"Yeah, well, it didn't seem like it with him nearly throwing himself overboard to distract Aaron away from Manny the other day," Paige said irritably.

Emma pursed her lips. "Did you ever think that maybe he was trying to distract him away from _you_? I mean, you were the one who was all over Aaron about how cute and 'experienced' he was. Maybe Craig was jealous of that."

"Whatever." Paige rolled her eyes in typical fashion, but Emma could tell she was mulling over the idea. "Hey. What the hell?"

The scene before their eyes was one that, just weeks ago, they would never have imagined possible. In fact, upon even imagining it, they probably would've been snatched up and stuffed in a psychiatric ward for further evaluation.

Music was pouring out of the car they'd abandoned, a popular Top 40 station turned up to full volume and every door and window opened to better amplify the sound. In the glare of the headlights, Sean and Jay smiled and slapped five while Manny giggled delightedly and danced around them.

"It's like the Twilight Zone," Craig remarked, having reached the van and setting down the gas can he'd volunteered to heft back.

"We fixed it!" Jay hollered, catching sight of their return. "The radio!"

"We?" Sean pulled him a few steps back by his collar. "_I _fixed it, people. Jay held the flashlight."

"There's no 'I' in team, Cameron," Jay laughed, shrugging out of his grip. "Care to dance, Em? Paige? Hell, Manning, I'll even take you. We've got a working radio. Life is good, grasshoppers, life is good."

Paige chewed her lips while considering Emma's words, then made a decision. "Sorry, Jay, you'll have to settle for Em. Craig's dance card is full." That said, she tugged the shocked boy's hand and began to move to the rhythm.

And with only the moon to act as witness, the six of them stayed awake until sunrise, laughing and dancing. To the few cars that passed by in the early morning hours, they looked like the best of friends, celebrating a milestone in all their years of knowing each other. And that was exactly what they felt like.


	13. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy

Sorry this has taken so long to update! I've been a little distracted lately. To those of you still reading, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Don't forget to R&R!

**Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy**

_Kellar, Texas_

Maybe Craig was just as crazy as his doctors feared.

After last night, he'd been sure he and Paige had turned a corner in their relationship. They'd danced for hours and then settled down to talk until sunrise. And he could have _sworn_ that just as he was drifting off to sleep, she'd pressed the lightest of kisses to his cheek.

But apparently, he'd been hallucinating, because this morning it was business as usual. Paige hadn't even attempted to call shotgun and secure herself the seat next to his, choosing instead to share the middle row with Sean. Craig didn't really have a problem with Sean, as long as he didn't crash the car during his driving shifts and continued to treat Emma with respect, but as Paige laughed quietly with the other boy, it was all he could do to keep from pulling over and taking a swing at him.

He was obviously unstable.

"Hey, are we driving Miss Daisy or what?" Jay crumpled a ball of paper and aimed it at Craig's head, grinning triumphantly when it connected with the target. "Pedal to the medal, Manning, I wanna get to Texas before the cowgirls have to bring the cows home."

"I'm already going eighty," Craig defended, but he accelerated slightly anyway. He hated to give Jay the satisfaction but, damn it, the middle row was awfully small and Paige and Sean looked too close for his comfort.

"Jay, we all know why you're in such a hurry to get to Texas," Paige spoke up sweetly, turning around in her seat to bat her eyelashes at him. "But, honey, you shouldn't get your hopes up. Not _everything_ gets bigger."

Everyone cracked up at that, and even Craig had to crack a smile. Paige always knew just where to hit. Unfortunately for him, Sean was just as impressed and in a far better position to show it.

"Good one, Michelchuk," he enthused, holding his hand up expectantly. Grinning, Paige slapped her palm to his.

Craig glowered into the rearview mirror as they high-fived and stepped on the gas. They really needed to get to Texas before he completely his mind.

XXX

"It's harder than it should be," Sean remarked, when they'd been in Texas for over two hours and been turned away from no less than three ranches. "I mean, you'd think … Texas. Horses. It makes sense."

"You'd think," Emma agreed, still looking vaguely sick. The last ranch they'd visited had been in them middle of castrating their bulls, a horrifying process to hear even from a distance. She wasn't sure she'd ever recover. "When I saw that horseback riding was on the list, I thought Texas would be perfect. Who knew it was more about raising cattle and sending them off to slaughter?"

"And who knew the guys would be so … old?" Ignoring her friend's delicate vegetarian constitution, Paige wrinkled her nose. "They were all dirty and … leathery. Where are the young, shirtless, Abercrombie kind of cowboys?"

"They'll end up like that eventually," Craig pointed out irritably. It was the first thing he'd said to her all day and he hadn't even meant to let those words slip out, but he was tired of her endless fascination with other guys. It was beginning to feel more and more like an insult.

She laughed, despite his serious tone. "Who says I plan on sticking around long enough for _that_?" she countered, eyes bright with merriment as they met his in the rearview.

"Oh! Stop!" Manny shrieked without warning. "Look at that sign!"

Jay snickered. "Heeeere's your sign," he drawled, putting on a thick Southern accent, then glanced around. "No? No one's with me on that one?"

Manny shushed him and leaned over his lap to get a closer look at the sign that had captured her attention. "Horseback riding, forty bucks per person! And they're open!"

"Oh, my God, it's like fate!" This time's Jay's imitation was easily recognizable as Manny's unbridled enthusiasm. In retaliation, she smacked him lightly, and they tumbled out of the car laughing and bickering like children.

"Can I help you?" The accent on the new voice was less obvious than Jay's had been, but it definitely carried a twang. They all turned to face a boy about their age, dressed simply in jeans and a white t-shirt, his face a deep tan beneath the brim of an honest-to-God cowboy hat. "Y'all lookin' to rent some horses?"

He gestured to the pen across the field, which seemed to be home to at least fifteen of the creatures. They were prancing free at the moment, manes billowing in the wind, coats gleaming in the sun.

"Oh, they're _beautiful_," Manny breathed, stepping up onto the fence's lowest rung for a better look. "Do we get to choose? Can I have the black one?"

The ranch hand ducked his head, chuckling shyly at her glee. "Take your pick," he invited the rest of them. It took twenty minutes to round up the animals and saddle them properly, then he gave them the rules: the horses were only allowed on the marked-off trails, and had to be back by sundown.

"Was _he_ cute enough for you, princess?" Jay inquired of Paige as they started off. She really did look like a princess at the moment, perched on her horse's back with perfect posture and almost regal air about her.

"I'd ho-down with him," she smirked, and they shared a grin.

The friendly moment was ruined with a dark look and a mutter from Craig. "You'd ho-down with _anyone_," he grumbled, before pressing his heels lightly into his horse's flank to outpace the others.

"Ouch," Jay remarked, watching him go. "That wasn't very nice."

"You'd have said the same thing," Paige returned, trying not to be too hurt. Craig had been acting weird all day and, try as she had to ignore it, it seemed he was looking for a fight.

"Yeah, but I would've been kidding," Jay told her. "Craig isn't exactly known for his witty one-liners. He meant something by it."

As much as Paige hated to admit it, he was right. "Well, I'm going to find out what," she declared, and set off after Craig.

XXX

"Wanna talk about it?"

"About what?" Craig bit out, not sparing her a glance. He wondered how she'd caught up with him so quickly. And how she could look so comfortable when they were so far out of their element.

"About why you suddenly hate me," she said, the words a challenge. "'Cause we were fine last night, but today you've been ignoring me like I killed your dog or something."

"I don't have a dog," he told her. "And I'm the one being ignored here. You spent all day flirting with Sean and laughing with freaking Jay Hogart and you've barely looked at me twice."

"Oh." She thought she was beginning to see the problem. Paige wasn't as much of a blond as she sometimes let people believe. "Please don't tell me you're jealous of those two Stooges. I mean, Jay? Come on. Give me some credit. And Sean and I get along really well, but … he's with Emma. I wouldn't do that to her."

"Right, 'cause the two of you are as close as sisters," he scoffed.

"No." Paige stared at him as if she'd never met him before. He wished it didn't make his skin feel as if it were on pins and needles. "Because I'm not the heinous bitch some people – including you, I guess – seem to think I am.

"I really thought you were different, Craig," she continued. "I mean, I knew you had your share of problems, but I figured that only made it easier to understand me. We've both been judged by people who can't be bothered to get to know us. I guess I kind of thought we were … well. I was wrong, apparently. Thanks for proving my theory that all guys do, in fact, suck."

Her speech stunned him into silence, mostly because he hadn't been expecting such an outburst. In typical Craig Manning fashion, he'd assumed that _she_ had been snubbing _him_, because of course he would be the injured party. He would never assume responsibility and own up to the fact that he hadn't so much as smiled in her direction since waking up without her in his arms.

Why was he always so convinced it was all about him? He knew Paige had her own share of troubles. As her friend, he should've known enough to ask her what was wrong. As someone who wanted to be more than her friend, he definitely should have leant an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

"Paige, wait!" he called out, but his realization had come too late. She was far ahead of him on the path, her hair whipping behind her like a surrendering flag in the wind. He watched, upset, as she rounded a bend skillfully and passed out of sight.


	14. Poker Faces, Pocket Aces

**Poker Faces, Pocket Aces**

"Twenty bucks says she kicks his ass," Jay proposed.

They had reined their horses to a stop and were assembled in a loose circle at the path's edge, speculating on what had just happened between the remaining two members of their group. He grinned as he pictured Craig getting his foot shoved down his throat, where it apparently belonged, by Paige.

Manny shook her head, tucking a chunk of loose hair behind her ear. "You really shouldn't get so much pleasure from other people's trouble," she informed him somberly, causing his smile to flicker.

"Aw. Worried about your loverboy? Don't look so glum, Manny, I'm sure it won't hurt." He sneered. "_Much_."

"Probably only about as much as it did when Alex kicked _your_ ass to the curb," Emma piped up. Jay's comment hadn't really bothered her – mostly because she thought Craig _was_ in need of a good ass-kicking – but she knew Manny wouldn't defend herself.

"Probably only as much as that stick did when it was shoved up your –" Jay began, but was cut off by Sean's hand on his shoulder and a mildly threatening look. "Never mind. You guys don't have to be so uptight, I was only joking, anyway."

Manny shrugged and looked away from him, but both Emma and Sean offered up small smiles before guiding their horses back into formation. "Come on," Sean urged, "We should catch up before they really do kill each other."

"Well, what's the fun in _that?_" Jay complained, but due to the hooves pounding on the dirt, no one heard him.

They found Craig around the next bend and Jay wasn't the only one who had to stifle a chuckle. Their friend's head was hanging down in an exact imitation of his horse, which was bent at the neck to chew thoughtfully on the grass. "Hey, Mr. Ed," he called out, "You done moping yet? 'Cause we're bored."

"Shut _up_!" Manny hissed at him, and would've jabbed her elbow into his ribs had their horses not kept them a safe distance apart.

Sean ignored both of them, peering around Craig and straining to see further down the trail. "Seriously, Craig, are you ready? We should find Paige, it'll be dark soon."

"She can handle herself," the brooding boy said sullenly, but he gathered the reins and clucked his tongue until his horse began to move again. Somehow, he found himself in the lead, guiding the others to Paige, even though he had no idea where she was and even less of a clue how to reach her.

Farther down the path, Paige could hear the group of horses galloping towards her and dried the last of her tears hastily on the hem of her shirt. By the time her friends came into view, she had her head held high and a smirk in place. "Took you losers long enough," she called out, "Try to keep up, huh?"

If anyone noticed her deftly avoiding any and all eye contact, they were tactful enough not to say anything. Except, of course, Jay, who did lower his voice but couldn't quite censor himself enough to not say anything. "Double or nothing he's dead when we wake up in the morning."

Sean rolled his eyes but shook on it.

XXX

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the next item on our list."

Emma was practically bubbling over with excitement, an emotional state she hadn't come close to entering in what felt like years. Walking backwards so she could better see their faces, she nudged the door to the barn open and waited.

"What the hell?" Jay glanced around at the hay-filled stalls, the chickens nesting in corners and on window ledges. His gaze landed on the round table in the barn's center, crowded with six chairs and hosting a deck of cards and a case of poker chips. "Who plays poker in a barn? That ranch hand just lost some major cool points."

"_We_ play poker in a barn," Emma answered, eyes shining. "At least, tonight we do. It's on the list: play Texas Hold 'Em … in Texas."

It was a little weird to have such a familiar setup in such unfamiliar territory, but Jay figured he could handle it if there was money on the line. Or better yet … "Are you sure it wasn't 'play strip poker in Texas'? 'Cause I'd be okay with that."

Sean shut him up with a punch to the arm. "Who set this all up?" he asked, more than a little confused. They'd been out riding for the past hour and if the ranch hand just happened to have a poker table conveniently waiting, they were getting the hell out of dodge.

"I asked Luke – the boy who helped us with the horses – while you guys were all getting ready," Emma explained. "I wanted it to be a surprise. He said we could stay here for the night, too, there's sleeping bags over there."

"Fantastic," Paige proclaimed, and no one could be sure if she meant it or was being sarcastic. "Seriously," she added, to ease their bewilderment. "I'm killer at poker and I need some cash to get my nails done next time we pass through civilization. I'm in."

She was already sitting down and shuffling the cards, which left everyone else with little to no choice. Once Paige's mind was set, it was set, and besides, no one wanted to be the one to get on her last nerve today.

"Great!" Emma grinned, and began sorting the chips into colored stacks, looking a little bit like an expert as her fingers moved nimbly through the pile. "Ante up, everybody."

Sean watched, more than a little surprised, as she took the shuffled deck from Paige and fanned it out impressively. "You've done this before, I see."

"Taught her everything she knows," Jay crowed delightedly, his gaze intent on the quick movement of Emma's hands. "You've been practicing, Greenpeace."

Sean's body jolted slightly with that small reminder of how the two had come to know each other. He and Emma had already been on less-than-friendly terms after the shooting, but he'd heard through the grapevine about the relationship she'd struck up with Jay. Even then, when he wasn't supposed to care, it had bothered him.

But not half as much as it did now, while Emma shot Jay a small, private smile and Jay returned it with a wink.

XXX

"I'm all in," Manny decided, only seconds into the fifth hand.

"You've got nothing," Sean protested half-heartedly. 'Nothing' was about two chips more than he was down to, and he kept getting distracted by his nerve endings tingling irritably every time Jay referred to Emma by one of his many nicknames.

She arched one eyebrow at him over her carefully guarded hand. "Try me," she invited, daring him to call.

In the interest of speeding the game along – and, okay, he wanted to see if she was really that good a bluffer – Sean called. Manny threw her cards down on the table, revealing a losing hand and relinquishing her chips with a groan. "Told ya so," Sean chuckled, the win putting him in a slightly better mood.

"You can be on my team," Paige invited the other girl, and shifted slightly to share her cards.

"Now there's girl-on-girl _teams_?" Jay asked, pretending dismay. "We really should've made this a naked game."

"I hear ya," Craig muttered, and the oddity of the situation suddenly struck him. He was sitting in a barn, talking about strip poker with Jay Hogart, while his ex-girlfriend and his new love interest joined ranks and avoided his gaze. "This night is ridiculous, I hope you all know that."

Emma laughed brightly as she raked in yet another round of winnings and slapped Jay five. "It really is," she agreed. "In the past four hours, I've seen Jay fall off a horse –"

"He threw me!" Jay defended.

"- heard you agree with him on something, watched Manny and Paige become teammates and soon, I'll get to witness Sean crawling into a sleeping bag in a haystack." Emma finished with a grin. "I'm seeing all of you in a whole new light."

"Back atcha," Sean pointed out dryly, indicating her huge heap of chips. Emma looked better than she had in weeks, her eyes bright with something other than unshed tears, her cheeks flushed with excitement. She looked alive again, and he was absurdly grateful to everyone gathered at the table – Jay included – for having a hand in bringing her back around. "You're cleaning up, Em."

"Well, I have to give credit where credit is due," she said airily, and patted Jay's hand just before laying out her cards, "I had a great teacher."

Sean's eyes narrowed, watching as one of Emma's hands stole the rest of his chips away and the other squeezed Jay's fingers, stealing his good mood.


	15. Needles In Haystacks

As always, thanks to those of you kind enough to leave reviews, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter! Leave me your comments/suggestions, I take each one into consideration when writing.

**Needles In Haystacks**

"You're mad at me," Emma said, her voice so quiet he could barely catch it as he tossed and turned, rustling his sleeping bag.

Sean stilled at the words. They weren't true, exactly, but they were close and he definitely hadn't expected them. "No – no, not mad," he answered carefully, wishing the sun hadn't set so he could have some source of light to better examine her face.

Her tiny little sigh traveled the distance between them, making him wish she was close enough that he could feel the breath on his skin. "Then what? You've been weird all night."

"I'm surprised you noticed," he told her flatly, trying not to sound like he'd spend the past few hours thinking of twenty seven different ways to ditch Jay. "You and Hogart have been pretty … friendly."

"Well, we're friends." A frown tugged her lips downward. She'd thought they were _all_ friends now. Things between them had improved tenfold from the day they'd started out. "What's the big deal?"

"Since _when _are you and Jay Hogart _friends?"_ Realizing that the others were probably asleep and not wanting to wake them, Sean lowered his voice. "I mean, really, Emma. When did the two of you become all buddy-buddy?"

"He's helped me out a lot, Sean," she tried to explain. He snorted. "It's true! After the shooting, you and I weren't … on the best of terms, and Manny and I were fighting, and Jay was there."

"Yeah, to play hooky and tonsil hockey with," Sean bit out. He'd heard the rumors about the two of them, glimpsed them together on more than one occasion. "Great guy. Wonderful to have on your side."

There was some more rustling, this time as Emma shifted to draw her knees to her chest. Sean could just barely make out her silhouette now as his eyes adjusted. "It wasn't like that. I mean, it was, in the beginning. But then he and Alex broke up and I realized that I didn't want to be his next girlfriend. I just liked being around him."

"Why?"

"Well, you have to admit, he's a pretty good distraction," Emma reasoned. "I mean, haven't you ever noticed that most of the time, when Jay's being a jerk, it actually helps? He's willing to be the target for everyone's anger, because he can take it."

Sean was quiet, absorbing that particular opinion. If he really thought about it, he had to admit she had a point. The tension in the car could be at a record-breaking high and, with one well-timed insult, Jay could have them all laughing and joking again. And he was always the first one to point out a problem everyone else was studiously avoiding.

"I guess I can see how that would have been … useful to you," he admitted grudgingly. "Given the circumstances."

More sounds of movement and Sean, squinting into the dark to make out her expression, was surprised to find his arms suddenly full of her, her body pressed against his side. "I appreciate him," Emma said, now as close as he'd wished her to be. "I appreciate all of you and what you've done for me. Coming on this trip was _such_ a huge thing to take on. I don't think I would've made it to Oregon if I hadn't had all of you to make sure I didn't turn back."

"Like you've ever left anything unfinished." Sean scoffed at the mere thought of Emma walking away from a project. "I know you, Em. You would've seen it through to the end."

"Know what's weird?" she said thoughtfully, and he didn't have to see her to know that she was chewing her bottom lip. "I kind of don't _want_ this to end. Know what I mean?"

Sean thought for a minute. There were times in the car, with Jay and Paige trying to one-up each other and Craig bobbing his head to the radio and Manny and Emma giggling together behind cupped palms, when he was convinced he was in an alternate universe. But that wasn't really a bad thing. So far, this trip had been nothing like he'd expected and better than anything he'd hoped for. "Yeah," he finally responded, a little in awe of the fact that he was serious. "I know how you feel."

"You always do," Emma murmured, and stayed in his arms as sleep overtook them both.

XXX

A rooster crowing directly in his ear awoke Craig with a start. "Holy –" he spat out, rolling away from the bird in alarm. "What the hell is that?"

"Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here," Jay drawled out, the smirk on his face somehow translating into his tone, "And say it's a rooster. You know, cock-a-doodle-doo?"

"Shut up," Craig commanded, giving him as withering a stare as he could muster at such an ungodly hour. "I know what it is. I just don't know why it's so _close_ to me."

"Maybe it thinks you're pretty," Jay suggested, cracking himself – and Emma, although she had the decency to slide her palm over her mouth – up.

"Are you guys ready to go yet?" Paige demanded, striding into the barn. The early morning sunlight poured in the doors she left open, nearly blinding Craig with its strength. "I've been up since Luke came through collecting chicken eggs and, let me tell you, that is _not _a pleasant process to witness."

"Probably about as much fun as getting a glimpse of you without makeup," Craig grumbled, rather nastily, but their fight during the horse riding yesterday had kept him up most of the night and the rooster had provided him with perhaps the rudest of awakenings.

"Uh-oh," Jay sing-songed, "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the haystack."

For her part, Paige fixed him with an absolutely lethal stare, so menacing that he wasn't sure why he didn't just drop dead on the spot. "You have straw in your hair," she finally said flatly, before turning on her heel and making her way back to the car.

Craig reached up and withdrew the stray pieces of hay, rolling his eyes as he tossed them to the ground. "Wonderful," he pronounced sarcastically. "This is shaping up to be a fantastic day already."

"You should talk to her," Emma advised, as Jay, Sean, and Manny all pretended to busy themselves with rolling their sleeping bags and listened carefully to every word.

"I _tried_," he shot back, jamming his feet into his discarded sneakers. "She won't even give me the time of day."

"You should try again," was Emma's only other suggestion. At his own version of the death glare, she shrugged. "Seriously, Craig. We all know Paige wouldn't get _this_ pissed unless something was really wrong."

"Or unless she was having a bad hair day," Jay muttered to Sean, who nodded his agreement but wisely kept his mouth shut.

"What else can I do?" Craig argued, but it was half-hearted at best. He was tired and sore and filled with guilt about the way things had gone down on the trail. "She doesn't want anything to do with me."

"Well, she _did_," Emma pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest. "Until you basically called her a slut."

"That's _not_ what I meant!" he returned hotly, but it was futile. He knew exactly how it had come out. "She knows I don't think of her like that. None of us do."

Jay cleared his throat, but Manny slapped her hand over his mouth before he could interject. Ignoring them, Craig continued, "I was just mad because she's always on the lookout for guys, you know? And then she gets jealous when I even look twice at a girl. It's not fair."

"Paige has had some bad experiences," Emma reasoned. "And let's face it, Craig, you don't have the best reputation when it comes to relationships. She has grounds for concern."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, seeing her point but hating to admit in front of all of them the mistakes he'd made in the past. "I know. Let's just get this show on the road, okay? It's a long drive to New Orleans."

"It's gonna feel a hell of a lot longer with Paige in the mood she's in," Jay cautioned as they all moved to join her in the car and, for once, no one argued with him.


	16. This Party Goes All Night

**This Party Goes All Night**

_New Orleans, Louisiana _

"Dude. What'd you do to Paige?"

Jay's question came a mere three seconds after the hotel room door had slammed shut behind them. For the first time in the entire length of their trip, Paige had requested two separate rooms when she called ahead to make reservations, making it clear to everyone in the car that there was a serious problem.

Craig sighed and collapsed onto one of the beds. "Not now, man. I'm tired. I've been driving all day long on practically zero sleep."

"You can't sleep now!" Jay looked aghast at the idea, visibly shaken. "We're in New Orleans, man. Party central. Booze and boobs and beads. Get up."

"That sounds like the worst idea ever," Sean commented. He'd been checking out the room, unused to having so much space at his disposal after so many weeks crammed into the SUV. "Jay, remember what happened last time we drank?"

"Emma got mad at you." He waved the detail off with one hand, as if brushing a fly away. "So what? She gets mad at me all the time. And since Paige is already mad at Craig, we have nothing to fear."

"What about Manny?" Sean pointed out. He wasn't an idiot. He'd seen how the two of them acted together; Jay tugging on her ponytail and Manny giggling through her glare. It was like foreplay for four year olds. "She'll probably get pissed at you."

Jay's chest puffed out. "Lucky for me, I'm not a pansy," he bragged, fixing them both with pointed stares. "And I don't let a girl I'm not even dating run my life."

Craig sat up, rubbing at the dark circles beneath his eyes, and sighed loudly. If Jay wasn't going to let him get any sleep, he couldn't think of a better way to forget Paige then washing her memory down with vodka. "Fine. But how do you expect to be let into the bars around here, anyway? We're nowhere near twenty-one."

In answer, Jay shook out the smaller of his two duffle bags, his grin triumphant and just a little smug. "Boys, meet my partners in crime," he announced, as an impressive collection of fake ids fell to the floor. Craig and Sean gaped. "Find one you look like and get ready to _party_."

XXX

"Well, this is quite the party," Emma remarked, glancing around at her companions. Manny was flat on her stomach on the floor, staring up at the TV screen with her chin in her hands, and Paige was eyeing her reflection murderously as she brushed her hair in the bathroom mirror. They were both already in pajamas. "You guys didn't want to go out, maybe see Bourbon Street?"

"Not in the mood," Paige bit out, as if that particular fact wasn't obvious. After being stonily silent for the entire car ride, she'd shanghaied the other girls into a separate hotel room before they could protest. "Besides, I figured out a way to bring Bourbon Street to us."

She didn't empty her bag with the flourish that, two floors up, Jay had, but Paige Michelchuk didn't need special effects. It was enough just to flash a winning smile and produce the bottle of alcohol from her oversized purse.

"Where did you _get_ that?" Manny demanded, her show long forgotten as she hopped onto her feet and hurried closer. "And when? And … where?"

"When we stopped in that strip mall so Jay could refill on pretzels and Red Bull." Paige shrugged, as if it securing illegal beverages was an everyday activity for her. "I showed a little cleavage to the guy in the liquor store. I thought we'd have a girl's night, stay in, get tipsy, whatever."

"To Paige," Manny proposed, arching a brow as the blond began to pour the drinks into Dixie cups. "And the best idea she's had yet."

XXX

"Hey, Emma," Manny began. It had been a few hours since they'd started their small celebration and the level of liquid in the bottle was nearing nonexistent. "Is Sean a good kisser?"

"The best!" Emma enthused, without any sign of her normal restraint. "I miss kissing him. His lips are just … wow. Is there any more of this stuff?"

Paige leaned back to avoid smashing her forehead into the cup Emma was waving around. "I think we ate it all … oops, I mean, drank it." The sound of her own laughter surprised her, light and airy. "Guys, this is _fun_. How come we never hung out before?"

Had they been sober, Manny and Emma probably would have shot each other _Is she kidding?_ looks and launched into a whole laundry list of reasons, most of which boiled down to Paige being somewhat of a snob back at Degrassi. As it was, they simply dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"I'm _serious_," Paige whined, her drink sloshing at the sides of her cup as she weaved her way to a refill. "And I am so, _so_ glad we are finally discussing the boy issue. Seriously, Emma Nelson, how long are you gonna wait before you jump Sean's bones?"

"Yeah, 'cause Paige would like a turn when you're done," Manny cracked, her eyebrows wiggling suggestively. Paige laughed with her, but didn't confirm or deny the statement.

"It's not like that this time," Emma insisted. "Sean and I are friends."

"And I'm the Queen of England," Paige snorted.

Emma may have been drunk, but she still had some of her wits about her and she knew exactly how to change the subject. "Well, what about you and Craig?" she countered, draining her cup with a lip-smacking flourish. "You can't have a lovers' quarrel without being lovers, so do tell, Miss Michelchuk."

"Please, he's still half in love with Manny and way too in love with himself," Paige scoffed.

Manny spat out the last swallow of alcohol she'd taken. "Craig is _not _still in love with me," she protested. It was strange that the truth of those words didn't cut her half as deeply as they once had. "He's into _you_, even I can see that."

"Whatever." Paige refused to let herself be swayed. "I'm so done with guys. All they do is cause trouble. I came on this trip to distract myself, damn it, and Craig Manning isn't going to change that."

"You know, I don't even care why you came," Emma declared, tossing her empty cup over her shoulder. "I'm just glad you did. Both of you. And, trust me, I never thought I'd say that."

Manny's pillow hit her first, making her shriek, and Paige's followed with a thump, starting an all-out war that ended with a sharp knock on the wall and a shouted threat from their neighbors to call security. But it was worth it, Emma thought as they settled down, to be able to laugh again and not feel guilty.

XXX

"You know, I never thought I'd say this," Jay said, his tone conversational but for the almost unnoticeable slur, "But you guys are great."

Sean and Craig exchanged wary glances over his head, which was hanging low as they escorted him, one arm wrapped around each of their shoulders, through the hotel lobby. "You're not so bad yourself, Hogart," Sean replied, "Contrary to what you try to make us all think."

"Con – trar – y," Jay repeated, brow furrowed in concentration. "That's a big word, Cameron. You didn't drink enough."

"You drank enough for all of us," Craig told him, but he didn't really mind. Jay's idea had turned out to be a good one. Not one of the four bars they'd visited had given them any trouble, and it had felt good to relax and kick back a few beers with guys he now considered friends. Weird, but good.

"_I_," Jay returned primly, "was taking one for the team. You're welcome."

"I didn't realize being an alcoholic was the same thing as being a martyr." Sean rolled his eyes, but his grin was good-natured. He started to continue, but cut off abruptly when Jay stumbled and he had to grab the back of his t-shirt to keep him upright. "Whoa, steady there, big guy."

"Whoa," Craig echoed, his eyes widening as he caught sight of an ugly scar that slashed angrily across Jay's lower back. "What happened, man?"

Jay struggled out of Sean's grasp, which had loosened as he followed Craig's gaze and reacted with the same amount of shock. "Got into a fight with my mom's boyfriend," he answered, as if it were no big deal. "Why do you think I came on this trip, the good company? Jackass wanted to press charges."

Sean and Craig exchanged another look, much more horrified than the last. "We – we didn't know, man," Craig finally said, a bit nervously, "You never said anything."

"You're right! I didn't!" Jay smacked his palm to his forehead, feigning dismay. "Let's keep it that way, huh, boys? Since we're best buds now and all, it's really the least you can do."

With a grimace that could have been a smile if it didn't look so painful, he pressed ahead of them and purposely didn't hold the elevator, leaving them with a lighter load on their shoulders, but heavier things on their hearts.


	17. Roller Coaster Rides

**Roller Coaster Rides**

_Orlando, Florida_

"I think Paige is going to single-handedly make Disney lose its title as the happiest place on Earth," Jay joked to Craig and Sean, gesturing to the girl's crossed arms and sulky expression. All day, he'd tried to keep things light, as if he could somehow erase from their minds what he couldn't erase from his back.

Not at all amused, Paige shot him a look that threatened to melt him faster than the stifling heat. "Listen," she said fiercely, "I'm hungover, hot, hungry, and … some other 'h' word for generally very pissed off. Do you really want to make any more smartass comments?"

"Nope." He kept his voice pleasant, a direct contrast to her bitter tone. "I'm good. You've successfully killed the last good mood in the entire line. Congrats."

The ticket-seller's cry of 'Next!' saved him from what would surely have been a severe tongue lashing. "Finally," Paige snapped, turning her anger on the unsuspecting park employee. "Six passes, please. And if you could make it quick, that'd be great, because I'm pretty sure I grew gray hair waiting for you to –"

"Ignore her." Emma rushed to the worker's defense, nudging Paige away from the window and accepting the tickets with an apologetic smile. "She's cranky, that's all. Sorry."

"Cranky? She gives new meaning to the expression 'bitch in heat'," Jay murmured into Manny's ear. She muffled her laughter, but nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, Emma was reprimanding her friend's horrendous behavior. "You have to be _nicer_ to people," she insisted, stressing the point. Now that she knew Paige had it in her to be a decent human being, she hated seeing her act this way. "Please."

"Oh, I'll be nicer – on one condition." Paige scowled. "You stick to me like glue today, Nelson. Do not, under any circumstances, leave me alone with Manning."

Emma held up her hand, freshly stamped to allow her entry into the Magic Kingdom, and wiggled her pinky. "Promise," she agreed instantly, and slid her free hand behind her back so that only Sean saw the crossed fingers.

XXX

Still trapped on the other side of the gate, Manny watched Emma scold Paige with a smile on her lips. Unlike her friend, she'd woken up feeling more refreshed than she'd been in weeks. Their conversations last night had helped her realize how ready she was to move on from Craig, and she turned to face him now with a new kind of confidence: "You have to make her stop."

Craig looked bewildered, probably because it the first thing she'd said directly to him throughout the entire trip. "Huh? I _what_?"

"You have to make her _stop_," she repeated patiently, putting her hands on his shoulders for emphasis. "She's only being like this because of your fight. Please, for the love of mankind –"

"And Mickey Mouse," added Jay, eavesdropping as usual.

"- Apologize," Manny continued, undeterred. "You guys have something, Craig, so don't screw it up again, okay? Just tell her you're sorry. Tell her you love her. Tell her _anything_ to make her stop scaring the little children. Please."

"But – Manny –" he stuttered, obviously at a loss. He hadn't expected to ever be receiving advice on girls from the one he'd hurt the most. "I – I don't –"

"You deserve to be happy, Craig," she interrupted. "So does Paige, and I think you guys could do that for each other. And I know it's weird that I'm saying that, but it's true. Just because we didn't work out, it doesn't mean you should hold back this time around. This trip isn't about holding back. You know?"

"I – I – yeah." Craig's eyes darted to Paige, sulking in the distance, and he shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Good. Then go fix it," Manny ordered, shoving him through the turnstile that punched his ticket and stamped his hand. "Jay and I will be on the teacups."

"No way," Jay protested, even as she grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

Craig watched them go; smiling at how normal they looked as they disappeared into the crowd of tourists. He and Sean had agreed to keep what they'd learned a secret from the girls, at least until they could get the details for themselves, so for now, Craig shook the memory from his head and set off to take care of his own open wound.

XXX

"Why does every line in this place take about a thousand years to move an inch?" Paige asked loudly, so that most of the crowd could hear her complaint.

Emma cringed. They _had_ been waiting for nearly an hour, but that was part of the whole experience. And besides, they'd finally reached the head of the line and Paige was already stepping into the bucket seat of the roller coaster even as she griped. The insanity had to end.

Luckily, Sean was having a similar idea. In a move she hadn't expected, he tugged her backwards, out of the cart, and shoved Craig forward so that he stumbled into her place beside Paige. "Whoa!" Craig exclaimed, and Paige leaned forward to argue just as the safety bars lowered into place and the gears ground to life.

"You are so dead, Emma," Paige threatened, her glower made slightly comical as she strained to peer around the giant yellow restraint. "I mean it. This isn't funny!"

Sean smirked and waved as the ride began to move. "You guys go on, we'll catch the next one," he encouraged, then turned to Emma with a brilliant smile. "It's a little funny, don't you think?"

"Oh, definitely," she agreed, leaning into him comfortably. "You know, my dad had Disney on the list as a family trip. And, I mean, it's not quite the people he imagined, I'm sure, but … it's the best family I could ask for, given everything."

Grinning all the wider, he hugged her close and decided no roller coaster in the world could give him a bigger thrill than her words.

XXX

"You know," Craig tried, as the coaster jerked up the first hill. "You've held a grudge across, like, five states. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of record. It probably wouldn't hurt to call it quits and make up now."

Paige, keeping her eyes on the ground they were slowly rising away from, forced herself to stay focused. "Why should I be nice to you? You're a jerk," she snapped. "And I promised myself no more jerks after the last _ten_, so that's that."

"I'm not a jerk!" The protest sounded weak even to his own ears. "I mean, not always. Sometimes, I guess. You just made me mad. You're always flirting with other guys and I thought … I thought we had something," he said, remembering Manny's words. "And then you didn't seem like you cared."

"Of course I cared," she bit out, her guard coming down with every inch they climbed. "I just didn't _want_ to care. I heard all about what happened with you and Ashley and Manny, you know. Everyone did. And I don't want to go through something like that. I've had some … issues … with guys recently. A lot of them have hurt me. I don't want that to happen again."

Craig watched the fear flickering across her face and realized it wasn't just due to the height they were currently hovering at. "It won't," he promised fervently, "Paige, I won't let it. I'm different, I can _be_ different. You just have to give me a chance."

She hesitated. The ride was paused now, poised at the top of the hill as if it, too, was waiting with baited breath for her response. The car teetered on the brink once, twice, then fell over the edge with a swoosh, making them both scream. With every thought wiped clean from her head, Paige's hand shot out to grab Craig's, anchoring herself to the only solid thing she knew.

Her eyes slammed shut as the wind whipped against her face and she screamed, not from terror, but from pure joy. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as they veered along the course, twisting and turning, her grip tightening on Craig's hand with every death-defying loop. When they finally slammed to a stop, she was doubled over with breathless, exhilarated laughter.

"Could I have my hand back now, please?" Craig asked wearily, certain that every bone in it was crushed to bits. He wondered if that wasn't just her idea of revenge.

"Sorry!" she gasped out, still giggling madly, and she looked so happy that he decided he didn't care if she _had_ permanently damaged his hand on purpose. "That was the best ride ever! We should go again!"

"Uh …" Craig glanced around for Sean and Emma's familiar faces, but saw no one he recognized waiting in line. "Yes? It'll be a long wait, though, remember?"

"Whatever," Paige dismissed, jumping out of her seat and bouncing on the balls of her feet as she waited for him to exit. Once he was free, she took his hand again (gentler this time, thank God) and led the way to the end of the line. "It could be worth it, don't you think?"

The look she gave him was so meaningful, the smile so blinding, that he forgot to think at all, but as he pulled her close and kissed her senseless, he definitely agreed.


	18. Southern Discomfort

Hi guys! Sorry for the wait, my computer had a meltdown and we lost internet access for, well, far too long. Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter, as always, don't forget to review!

**Southern Discomfort**

_Savannah, Georgia_

The bed and breakfast was a far cry from the lavish hotels they'd enjoyed ever since Paige first produced her platinum credit card, but Jay pulled into the parking lot anyway. His back ached like hell, the old bruises stinging with a vengeance after the battering they'd endured on the amusement park rides yesterday, and he wanted a rest.

"Why are we stopping?" Paige had to pry herself away from Craig for the first time in hours to ask the question. It would have been annoying, their sudden clinginess, but anything that kept her quiet and gave Jay a chance behind the wheel couldn't be a bad thing. "Shouldn't we be finding a hotel?"

"This _is_ a hotel," he informed her, hopping onto the asphalt. "Jeez, princess, maybe you two lovebirds should take a breather before the lack of oxygen does permanent damage."

"This isn't a hotel, it's someone's house," Paige argued, remaining in her seat even as everyone else piled out around her. "Somebody on welfare, from the looks of it."

"It is _not_ that bad," Manny protested from the pavement, turning to study the establishment in question. "It's kind of … quaint."

"Quaint is for people _without_ designer duffle bags, Manny" Craig huffed, obviously mocking Paige, slinging one of those bags over his shoulder at the same time.

The sight of Craig helping her out without even thinking about it put Paige in too good of a mood to pick a fight. Instead, she flipped her hair and stepped out of the car, taking the smallest of her bags from Craig's hands. "I'll take this one."

"Paige carrying her own luggage?" Jay feigned shock, widening his eyes and thumping his chest as if to restart a heartbeat. "What _will_ she do next?"

"Probably kick your ass," she offered as she sailed by him, but the ear-to-ear grin on her face sucked any and all venom out of her words.

Sean shook his head in wonder at her newfound easygoingness. "Looks like we'll need two rooms again," he grinned, noting how Craig's eyes stayed trained on the blond as she trotted ahead. "I never got a thank you, by the way. If memory serves, I was the one who risked life and limb so you guys could kiss and makeup. And, apparently, kiss some more."

"Ugh." Jay grimaced at the thought as he moved by them. "Let's not discuss it, I just ate."

They both started to retort, then noticed how he was dragging his bag along the ground instead of hefting it onto his back as usual. The light mood evaporated and, as if he could sense the change, Jay stiffened and sped up, vowing to avoid the boys he'd just begun to consider real friends.

XXX

"Aw, is somebody _tired_?" Unaware of the tension simmering between the boys, Paige put on a simpering childish voice and pouted at Jay as he threw himself facedown on the mattress. "Is someone gonna take a little nappy-nap?"

He was all set to ignore her teasing, but she reached out and poked him, her fingers digging into his spine and the scar that stretched across it. Pain made stars explode at the backs of his eyelids and he hissed as he jumped away.

"Whoa, what's your damage?" Paige asked, her eyes going round at his reaction. "I barely touched you."

"Nothing," he said, too quickly. "Just … startled me, that's all."

"Are you sure?" Beside him, Manny's brows were furrowed in concern, her eyes searching his face for clues. "You looked like you were really hurt."

"Please," Jay scoffed. "Paige, hurt me? Doubtful."

"If you say so," Paige dismissed and Manny, too, began to drop the issue and move away, but not before rubbing his back reassuringly, ripping another muffled groan from him. "Okay. Seriously, Jay. What's going on with you?"

Before he could even think of a response, Manny had lifted the back of his shirt and taken a look at his beaten-up back. "Oh my God," she gasped, stepping closer. "What _happened_ to you?"

With a ferocious scowl, Jay pulled away from her grasp. "I fell," he snapped flatly, and would have stormed out of the room had Craig and Sean not entered at just that moment, blocking his escape route. "Oh, for Christ's sake."

"Jay." Manny's voice was soft and smooth, more of a comfort than he could have imagined. But her eyes were wide and full of pity, which just wouldn't do. "Jay, please, tell us what happened."

"I got into a fight, okay?" he answered irritably, his body tensed as if braced to get into another one or possibly to make a break for it. "No big deal."

"It looks like a pretty big deal to me," Paige observed.

"Oh, what do you know, _princess_?" he sneered, turning what had become a term of endearment back into an insult. "You've never had to lift a finger for yourself unless you were getting a manicure. And I bet no one's ever been hauled off by the cops for beating you, then released a day later."

"You're right." She laughed, bitterly. "My rapist didn't even _get_ hauled off by the cops, Jay. He went free. So what do I know about wounds that don't heal?"

Craig touched her arm gently. "And me. My dad was a monster. And the worst part was, I never knew if it was going to be a good day or a bad day. If he would laugh or attack. It helps, Jay, to talk about it. No one in this room has had a perfect life."

"And obviously no one in it has any respect for _privacy_," Jay bit out, his gaze jumping from Manny's hurt look, to Paige's arched eyebrows and Emma's wide eyes, to Craig's abashed expression and Sean's unapologetic one. "Did it ever occur to even _one_ of you that I might not wanna share every detail of my life with you people?"

"You _hypocrite_!" Emma burst out, stepping forward with her fists clenched. Jay flinched, not at the threatening gesture, but at the unexpected fury flashing in her brown eyes. "All of you joined this trip without any invitation. You pushed your way into _my_ privacy, my pain, and made me deal with it. And guess what? I'm better off. It helped me. It made me feel whole again. So, please, would you let us help you?"

Everyone's heads swiveled slowly around to Jay for his argument. He gave them nothing, focusing on the floor to avoid their expectations, unready to admit that there was any chance of him being wrong or weak.

"Because it's really not fair," Emma continued, and he looked up again at the sound of her throat clogging with tears, "That my step-dad was one of the best people I'll ever know and he had to die and yours … he can do something like that to you and still get to be alive. I want it to be balanced. I don't want him to be able to hurt you anymore."

"He's not –" His own throat was scratchy, so he cleared it and tried again. "He's not my step-dad. He's not anything to me. Just some guy my mom dates."

"Jay, you can't keep pretending like this all means nothing to you," Sean insisted, speaking from experience. "I've been there, we've _all_ been there. I needed a gun pushed in my face before I realized how much time I was wasting pretending to be invincible. We saw what this guy did to you. Who's to say it won't happen again when you go back?"

"Who says I'm going back?" The challenge flew out of Jay's mouth of its own accord. It wasn't a thought he'd entertained before, but he kind of liked the idea of being free. "Maybe I'll stay on the road when this is all done. Maybe I have my own list of things to do that don't involve any of you."

"Maybe you're full of it." This from Manny, who had been stonily silent throughout the encounter. "Maybe you're more scared than all the rest of us put together and you're just better at hiding it. _Maybe_ you need us."

His chin lifted. "I don't need anybody."

There was a long, measured silence. When no one gave any indication of calling his bluff, Jay straightened his shoulders. "I don't," he repeated, and wasn't sure exactly who he was trying to convince. "I don't need your pity, or your stupid psychobabble, or any of it. Because – surprise! – it's not going to do anything. This stupid self-help trip won't bring Mr. Simpson back. You feeling sorry for the poor little abused boy won't make it any easier the next time Al decides I let the door slam on purpose just to bother him. None of it _matters_."

"Jay, that's not true, you don't mean –" Manny tried, but it was too late. He skirted around them, head ducked, and pushed his way out of the room. The door slammed behind him, the wood quivering with the force his anger.

"Well." Craig inhaled deeply and looked at Sean, who seemed as shell-shocked as he felt. "That went well."


	19. Going Up Against Ghosts

-1**Going Up Against Ghosts**

_Charleston, North Carolina_

"Ugh." Paige surveyed their latest stop, disappointment etched into her features. "Doesn't _anyone_ in the South do renovations?"

"Shh." Emma swatted the other girl's arm with the rolled up guidebook she'd picked up at the state line's visitor center. "It's _haunted_, remember? You don't want to make any ghosts angry."

"I seriously doubt there's ghosts," Paige grumbled, eyes rolling in exasperation. "What idiot spirit would choose to spend eternity in this dump?"

Craig hurried to interject before her complaints seriously pissed someone off. The mood in the group was bad enough, with Jay giving everyone the silent treatment and everyone else walking on eggshells to ensure that he didn't take off. "But think about the bright side," he proposed. "If we stay all night, it's free, and imagine all the shopping that could be done with the money we're about to save."

"_Survive_," Manny corrected, without taking her apprehensive eyes from the house that loomed before them. "If we _survive_ the night, that's what the brochure says. _If._"

"God, Manny, don't be such a drama queen," Paige huffed, slightly mollified by the point Craig had made about shopping. "This is real life, not some cheesy horror flick. Of course we'll survive."

Sean snorted as they filed through the entrance. "Famous last words, Michelchuk. You've doomed us all."

XXX

The clouds rolled in suddenly, the bright blue sky turning overcast and ominous without warning. A lightning strike flared up, illuminating the bleak setting, and with a crack of thunder, the storm began.

Manny shrieked at the booming noise and dove across the bed to clutch at Emma's hands. Sean hurried out of the way, laughing the whole time. "Manny, you have to _relax_," he stressed. "It's just rain. The Wicked Witch wouldn't be as scared as you are."

She would have stuck her tongue out at him if she wasn't afraid of losing it to her chattering teeth. "Hello, Sean? Dark and stormy night? Group of teenagers staying in a rundown shack that claims to be haunted? None of these are good signs."

"How come Manny gets to say this place is a rundown shack and nobody calls _her _picky?" Paige interjected, all her attitude doing nothing to hide the fact that she was keeping her eyes glued to the door.

Craig noticed, of course. "I don't think the ghosts are gonna knock politely and come in through the door, Paige, so you probably don't have to practice your x-ray vision right now."

She didn't even move her eyes to roll them at him, a sign that she, too, was on edge. "I'm waiting for Jay to burst in and yell 'Boo' and scare us all to death," she explained, a trace of bitterness in her words. "It would be just like that jerk."

"He's not a jerk." All eyes, this time even Paige's, moved to Emma, who squared her shoulders defensively. "You guys saw those bruises. You know what's happened to him. How can you even just ... blow him off like that?"

"Emma, it's awful what Jay's had to go through -" Craig began tentatively, but he was interrupted by Paige's blunt honesty.

"But we've all been through our share of bad stuff," the blond huffed, tossing her hair for emphasis. "And you don't see any of us going around acting like the whole world is against us."

Sean laid a comforting hand on Emma's arm. "Paige has a point, Em. I mean, he's gotta learn to let go of the past, you know?"

She moved away. "Well, he's not the only one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sean asked, taken aback by her tone.

Emma shook her head, already regretting the venom in her voice. "Nothing. Sorry. It's - it doesn't matter."

Sean glanced around at their friends - all seemingly deeply invested in studying the wallpaper pattern - and shook his head. "No, you said it, so it must matter. Come on." He tugged her into the hallway and pulled the door closed, knowing three ears would be pressed against it on the other side. "What was that about, Emma?"

"_Nothing_," she said again, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. "Okay. I'm sorry, it's just ... when was the last time you talked to Ellie?"

If there was one thing he hadn't been expecting, that question was probably it. Sean's brows crinkled in confusion. "Uh, Seattle, I guess. Why? What's that got to do with anything?"

Emma exhaled harshly. "I just thought ... I thought we were kind of, I don't know, getting close again."

"We are," he assured her, not seeing where the problem was.

"Well, Sean, come on." She laughed a little, but her eyes were serious. "I thought we were getting back to ... how we used to be. And that's obviously not true if you're still with Ellie."

Sean cringed as reality finally sank in. They'd been away from home so long - and, he could admit it, he'd been so wrapped up in Emma - that he'd completely forgotten about the girl he was supposed to be in a relationship with. "Oh. Emma. You can't think - you must realize - I mean, you have to know how I feel about you. Don't you?"

She shrugged. "All I know, Sean, is that last time I tried to kiss you, you pushed me away because of Ellie. And I can't lose you to her again. So, when you figure things out with her ... let me know."

With that, she stepped away from him and back into the room, leaving Sean standing in the hallway with a choice to make.

XXX

Soaked to the bone and more miserable than he'd been when he left, Jay dashed into the motel's foyer and shook the excess water droplets from his hair and clothes. Catching the owner's disapproving stare, he saluted her with a sardonic grin and pounded up the stairs.

The lights along the hallway ceiling flickered as he fumbled with his - apparently defective - key. Jay twisted with all his might and put his back into it, crashing through the door just as the room was plunged into blackness.

"Ghosts!" Paige screamed, moving with surprising speed from the window to Craig's arms.

Having already recognized Jay's form, Craig remained calm. "Thought you didn't believe in the supernatural, dear," he teased, trying to muffle his laughter as Paige regained her composure.

"Shut up," she ordered him, before marching over to a thoroughly amused Jay and punching his arm. "I _told_ everyone you'd try to scare us, you idiot. Grow up!"

"My key - was - stuck," Jay explained through bursts of laughter. "Scaring you was just a bonus. I've never seen anyone jump so high!"

Without meaning to, Emma giggled, then clamped her hand over her mouth at Paige's evil look. "Sorry," she said quickly, "It's just - well, look at him. He looks like a drowned rat. You were _scared_ of him?"

"He burst in out of nowhere!" Paige defended herself, but it was too late. The others had exploded into merriment: Manny collapsed into a fit of giggles on the bed, Emma trying to hide her amusement, even Craig - the traitor - shaking next to her with the effort of holding in his chuckles.

Paige put her hands on her hips, considered for all of two minutes, then hauled off and punched Jay again. "Ow," he protested, still chuckling. "What was that one for?"

"For running off to sulk and making us all worry," she informed him primly. "Don't do it again."

Jay sobered up at the reprimand, his grin fading, but there was a dim ray of hope in the eyes that had done nothing but glare for the past two days. He looked around the room at the rest of the group uncertainly. "You, uh, you were really all worried?"

Paige rolled her eyes. "Don't make me hit you again." She turned to face the others. "God, and you guys think _I_ fish for compliments. Now can we get the hell out of this creepy place? I've had enough of ghosts to last me a lifetime."

Jay slung his arm around her, pressing her body against his sopping wet clothes. Paige shrieked her disgust, almost drowning him out as he declared, "For once, princess, you and I are in complete agreement."


	20. Rock and Roll All Night

**Rock and Roll All Night**

_Chicago, Illinois_

"This is the best trip ever," Craig declared for perhaps the millionth time since he'd parked the SUV – crooked, due to his excitement – outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "I can't believe this place made Mr. Simpson's list."

"Seriously," Paige agreed, lacing her arm through his. "Who knew Mr. S. had a cool bone in his body? … No offense, Em."

Emma snorted. "None taken."

"I don't know, guys, I think it still counts as a museum," Jay hedged, feigning reluctance to enter the building. "The last time I was in a museum, it was an elementary school field trip and I got kicked out for setting off the fire alarm."

"Wasn't that last year?" Sean asked.

Jay thought. "You're right, it _was _last year. Man, Raditch was _pissed."_

Manny rolled her eyes, another sign of the hostility she'd been treating Jay with since the incident in Charleston. "Well, maybe you can try and control yourself today," she suggested. "Try acting like an adult for once."

With that, she turned on her heel and marched ahead of the group, leaving them staring after her. "Wow," Paige remarked. "That was bitchy. I'm kind of impressed."

Emma's eyes, clouded with concern, followed her best friend as she flounced away. "I'll go talk to her."

"Want company?" The offer was reflexive, and Sean knew the refusal was coming even before it left her lips. Things had been weird between them since she'd thrown down her ultimatum during their stay at the haunted inn.

"No, thanks." She gave him a half-hearted smile, but it didn't soften the sting of her not wanting to be anywhere near him. "I'll catch up with you guys, okay?"

"She'll catch up with _you_ guys," Paige laughed, gesturing to the way Craig's foot was anxiously tapping out a beat on the sidewalk. "Something tells me _we _are gonna be going nonstop. Don't get lost!"

"Or asked to leave the premises," Craig added as he dragged his girlfriend towards the destination of his dreams.

"Well, this is just great." Jay studied the crestfallen Sean, who was still eyeing Emma's retreating back. "Dude. Bros before hoes?"

Sean pushed away the fist he offered up for pounding and shook his head. "I just don't get her."

Unintentionally, Jay's eyes found Manny as she flipped her hair and said something to Emma. "Women are the world's mystery, my friend," he told Sean, clapping his back supportively. Sean looked askance at him and he shrugged. "I read that on a fortune cookie once. Come on. Forget it, man. They'll _both_ get over it. Let's rock and roll."

XXX

Paige was on her best behavior for the first two hours of Criag's whirlwind museum tour. She figured he put up with enough of her crap on a daily basis to deserve an afternoon of doing something that made him happy. Besides, he was so cute when he gave her that goofy, _Look! I'm standing next to a life-sized wax model of Mick Jagger! _grin.

But now they'd raced throughout half the Hall of Fame's displays, pausing to ohh and ahh over every framed picture and strike a pose with every statue. She was tired, her feet hurt, she needed to use the bathroom, and if she bit her tongue any longer, she was sure it would fall off.

"The line is huge," Craig protested as she led him to the rest area. "Can't you just … wait?"

The glare she fixed on him answered that question and, with a sigh, Craig relented. Thankfully, he recognized another figure wandering the lobby. "Manny," he called, making his way over to her. "Hey. Are you having fun? What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, I'm waiting for Emma." She pointed to the line Paige had just joined. "This place is something, huh? Is it everything you ever dreamed?"

"It's _amazing_," he enthused. Then his brows furrowed. "Hey, are you okay? You seemed a little … off when we got here."

"Oh, I'm fine." She waved a hand through the air, as if brushing the episode off. "I just … ugh, Jay can be such a _child_ sometimes, you know? With all his pranks and jokes. And running off to sulk during that storm? It's like, why can't you just talk about something that's bothering you, you know?"

"Yeah." Craig smiled knowingly. "Making snide comments and avoiding the issue is _so_ immature. He really needs to work on that."

Properly abashed, Manny bowed her head. "You're right. That was stupid. I just … I wish he'd told me – or any of us, I mean. I thought we were … we _all_ were … closer than that."

"Okay, ready!" Paige called as she exited the bathroom, Emma in tow. "Look who I found!"

Craig patted Manny's shoulder. "Talk to him," he advised, just as the other girls reached them. "Hey, babe, that was pretty quick. What'd you do, beat up all the other girls?"

Paige shrugged, grinning. "Emma helped."

XXX

"This has got to be the _best_ thing that's ever happened to me," Sean proclaimed, a rare grin spreading across his lips. "I mean, _ever_. Even better than winning the lottery."

Paige frowned. "You've never won the lottery."

"Trust me." Sean kept his gaze on the stage. "This is better."

Jay tapped the mic nervously as the spotlight found him. "Okay, I've never done this before, so you'll have to bear with me, but, uh, here we go."

The opening notes of an old N'SYNC song started up through the speakers and the entire table cracked up loud enough to almost drown out the music. "How – did this – happen?" Paige asked between bursts of laughter.

"We made a bet at the museum," Sean explained. "Loser had to karaoke to a song the winner picked out. And let's face it, Jay has 'closet Justin Timberlake fan' written all over him."

This made Emma curious enough to speak directly to Sean. "What was the bet?"

"He said he could get through the entrance without paying."

"I feel like … that's something Jay actually _could_ do," Emma said.

"Me, too." Sean shrugged. "That's why I went first and told the security guard that there was a guy loitering at the back of a tour group he didn't belong to. He made sure every single person in line paid up."

Onstage, Jay seemed to be enjoying his punishment. He was hamming it up, shimmying across the platform and flexing his muscles for the audience. "I lie awake, I drive myself crazy," he warbled. "Thinking of you. Made a mistake when I let you go, babyyyyy."

"He's driving _me_ crazy." Craig winced, ever the true musician. "He's really _awful_."

"Well, after this, you can show him what real singing sounds like," Paige assured him. "But right now, if we don't enjoy every minute of this moment, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives."

"I think we'll regret it either way," Craig sighed, but he uncovered one ear.

"Thank you, thank you very much." Jay's Elvis impersonation was dead-on, making the audience erupt into applause as the song faded out. "You know, that song may have been written by a bunch of no-talent, whiny, prettyboys, but it does hold some real meaning. I'd like to dedicate my performance to a special someone in the crowd tonight…

"Manny Santos," he announced, pointing out the red-faced girl who immediately slouched lower in her chair. "Who is mad at me for reasons she does not care to share. Manny, what can I say? It's not that I drive myself crazy … it's that you do. So I hope that you forgive me soon and we can all go back to being the happy little Partridge family we've become. Ladies and gentlemen, good night!"


	21. The Naked Truth

-1Sorry for the whole Chicago/Cleveland thing, guys! So many people called me out on that mistake! So I'm going to preface this chapter with the fact that I've never been anywhere and I have no idea if there's actually access to the Great Lakes. In this story, you can totally sneak into the water after dark. Also, for the sake of the story, Craig did get Manny pregnant when they went out (which was a long time ago) and she did have an abortion, hence the scar. That's all, enjoy!

**The Naked Truth**

_Lake Ontario, New York_

"You have to do it," Jay said matter-of-factly, his grin even more smug than usual. "It's a dare."

"Wrong." Manny glared at him, her own lips twisted into a scowl. "I can choose to pass and be given a Truth question that I have to answer or you win."

"Okay, then, Miss By-the-Rules," he replied, secure in the knowledge that he would be winning either way. There was a reason that he'd agreed to Paige's suggestion of Truth or Dare in the first place, and it wasn't because he longed for more quality bonding time with the group. "What's it gonna be? Truth or dare?"

Manny hesitated, weighing the odds of Jay being a decent person and asking her a relatively easy question against everything she had learned about his personality in recent weeks. There was no way he wouldn't go for the jugular if she chose Truth.

"Ow-ow!" Paige whooped the minute Manny stood up from the blanket they'd spread over the ground. "'Atta girl, Manny!"

She stripped down to her bathing suit, the moonlight washing her skin in a soft glow of light, then paused to give Jay one more killing glare. "Close your eyes."

"Not fair," he protested, although Sean and Craig had already turned their backs respectfully.

"You should've been more specific." Manny shrugged. "You only said I had to skinny-dip, you never said I had to do it with you watching. Your loss."

Jay threw his hands up in exasperation, but grudgingly turned around. He wasn't going to ogle her if she didn't want to be ogled - he wasn't a _cretin_, for God's sake - but he was most definitely disappointed that she'd found a loophole. Two minutes later, they all heard the tell-tale splash and a soft squeal as the water engulfed her.

"Guys, get in here!" Manny called out another minute, laughter bubbling up over her splashing. "The water's great!"

Jay toed off his shoes with such speed that the others could only stare. "What?" he defended himself. "She doesn't have to ask me twice."

Emma and Paige exchanged glances. "Hey, it'll be something to tell the grandkids," Paige shrugged, peeling off her sweatshirt. Her fingers stalled at the hem of her undershirt. "Boys, no peeking."

Craig pointed at Sean. "That's you, man. I'm the boyfriend. I get to watch."

"Close your eyes," Paige told him, laughing, and, all turning their backs on each other, they stripped down and slipped into the water.

"Oh, my God, it's _freezing_." Emma's teeth chattered to make her point. "Manny, I thought you said it was nice - Manny?"

She looked around, then saw that her friend had swum a distance away and been joined by none other than Jay. Emma shook her head. As far as she knew, Manny was hurt that Jay hadn't confided in her about his relationship with his stepfather. She hoped her friend knew what she was doing.

XXX

"I knew I'd get you naked by the end of this trip," Jay smirked.

Manny scoffed as she treaded water. "Yeah, you're so smooth. Too bad you had to rely on a game of Truth or Dare to make it happen."

"You know, you've been giving me attitude since Georgia," he observed. They were far enough away from the others that they could talk privately and he was getting pretty sick of her holier-than-thou act. "Is there an actual reason or is it just that time of the month?"

She glared. "You're a jerk, Jay."

"And that's not exactly a newsflash, Manny," he retorted. "It didn't seem to bother you before you saw my scars. What's the matter, you think I'm gonna be a copycat version of the guy who beats me?"

Unexpectedly, her eyes watered up. "Shut _up_, Jay," she ordered, struggling to get the words past the lump in her throat. "How can you even say something like that?"

"Are you - are you _crying_?" He sounded incredulous, as if he couldn't fathom why his abusive home life would reduce her to tears. "Manny. Why are you crying?"

Had there been solid ground beneath her feet, she would've turned and walked away from him. Unfortunately, she was in way over her head - literally. Jay had her cornered.

Before she could say anything, he started in again. "You know, if you're feeling sorry for me, it's -"

"Oh, get _over _yourself!" Manny interrupted. The splashing of their friends in the distance quieted, and she lowered her voice. "Guess what, Jay Hobart? Empathy isn't the same thing as pity, okay?"

"What does _that _mean?"

"It means -" It meant she wanted to strangle him herself. It meant she cared way more than she should about his open wounds. "It means the only reason I feel sorry for you is because you didn't think you could talk to me about this - about anything. It means I feel even sorrier for myself because I really thought we were closer than that. Okay? You happy now?"

Jay was silent for about a minute, which had to be some kind of record. He wasn't exactly known to think before he spoke. "It's not like ... I didn't keep it a secret because I didn't trust you," he finally said. "I just don't like to talk about it. That's all."

"No, that's _not_ all," she replied hotly. "It's not fair that you come on this trip and everyone else spills their secrets and you just don't have to share yours. And it's not fair that this happened to you, but it's just as unfair for you to deal with it alone. We're all here for you, Jay. We're here for each other. That's what this trip is really about. And if you can't accept that, then, yeah, I really do pity you."

She didn't expect to actually get through to him. In fact, Manny was just about to start swimming for the shore when Jay grabbed her hand and pulled it around his waist. Shocked, she didn't put up a fight as he guided her fingers over the raised scar tissue on his back.

"He uses a belt, sometimes, or hangers." Jay's voice was hoarse, but he kept his eyes on hers. "Once, it was dishes. But mostly it's just fists. And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to know. That's the truth. You're good, and you shouldn't have to hear about this kind of stuff. You're too good."

Manny made a noise that was almost a laugh. Then she shifted so that their palms were touching and squeezed his hand before guiding it to her stomach. Jay's fingers brushed over a long, rough patch of stitched-up skin. "I don't mind your scars, Jay," she told him. "We've all got them."

When he kissed her, he made sure to keep his hand pressed against the mark. It felt perfect.

XXX

"Oh, my God, they're totally making out," Paige whispered excitedly.

"Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious," Craig shot back, splashing her gently.

"You two sure do know how to ruin a magical moment," Sean remarked, but he was grinning as well.

"Guys." Emma was the only one of them who looked less than pleased. "Can we please, for a minute, process this? Manny and Jay are making out. Is that really such a great idea? I don't want her to get hurt."

She stopped herself before she could say "again", but they all heard it hovering at the end of her sentence. Craig looked down, would have shuffled his feet if he weren't busy treading water.

"Em, she's a big girl." Paige's voice was more gentle than anyone expected. "She can take care of herself."

Emma nodded, but still looked unsure. "I just ... I just want her to be okay. Both of them. All of us, I guess. I just want us all to be okay again."

To his credit, it was Craig that lay a hand on her shoulder. "I think she will be, Em," he assured her. "I think we all will be."

She wanted to say he was right. Looking at him and Paige, and now Jay and Manny, it really did seem that way. But then, always, her gaze shifted to Sean, to the distance they kept between each other now, and she couldn't quite believe it.


	22. One Sleepless Night

-1**One Sleepless Night**

_New York City, New York_

The guys adamantly refused.

Paige whined. Manny cajoled. Emma didn't utter a single word, but the look on her face as she folded up the list and replaced it in her pocket spoke volumes. "It's fine, guys," she finally broke in, cutting off the other girls' attempts at wheedling. "It's no big deal. They don't have to do it."

"Of _course_ they do," Paige scoffed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we all done everything so far? I mean, I slept in a stack of hay, for God's sake! Not to mention that first roach motel."

"And I sucked it up when we stayed in the haunted B&B," Manny added.

"We didn't even spend the whole night -"

She sat close enough to Jay that she could pinch his thigh without moving. "So besides Jay's karaoke routine," she continued. "Which doesn't even count, since it wasn't an item on the list, I can't think of a thing you guys have had to do that you were afraid of."

"Damn straight," Paige chimed in, impressed with Manny's newfound attitude. "So like it or not, we are going to chicken dance in Times Square until the cops kick us out."

There was a pause.

"Well, there's a sentence you don't hear everyday," Craig said, already snickering, and by the time the words had left his mouth, everyone else was laughing along.

Still, they hadn't actually agreed to anything, and when they rolled into the next rest stop, it was Sean who blocked Craig and Jay from exiting the SUV. The girls, intent on restocking their supply of junk food and trashy magazines, didn't notice the delay.

"Cameron, man, what's the deal?" Jay complained. "It's another hour to the city and I've drank three waters since lunchtime."

Sean raked a hand through his hair and sighed. "Guys, I know it sucks, but can you please just do this one small thing for Emma?"

"One small thing?" Jay exchanged an incredulous look with Craig. "Doing the chicken dance in the middle of New York City, the capital of all things cool, isn't like letting her borrow five bucks. It's ... it's ..."

"Embarrassing," Craig supplied. "Excruciating. Emasculating."

"You think I don't know that?" Sean countered. "Do I look excited? No. But we told her we'd finish off this list with her, and we need to stand by that. Come on. It's almost over. We'll be home soon and everyone else's lives are going to go back to normal, but Emma's still not gonna have Mr. Simpson. The least we can do is give her this."

Craig and Jay traded looks again. This time, their expressions were pained, but resigned. "Fine," Craig was the one to actually relent. "But one day, Cameron, we're gonna think of something humiliating for you to do. And you're not gonna be able to get out of it."

Sean accepted the terms with an easy-going grin. "I can't wait. Thanks, you guys. Really."

"Yeah, yeah," Jay grumbled, adding an eye-roll for effect. "Why don't you guys just get together already?"

His answer was a rueful grin. "I ask myself the same question."

XXX

"Before we do this," Jay announced as they crossed the border into the Big Apple, "I have one condition."

Emma perked up for the first time all day. "You're going to do it?"

"On one condition," he repeated firmly.

From the driver's seat, Sean met his gaze in the rearview mirror. "State your terms, Hogart."

"After _completely _humiliating ourselves, I move that we stay up all night - no hotel, no naps in the car, nothing."

Manny wrinkled her nose. "Why?"

Jay only grinned. "How else would we explore the city that never sleeps?"

To everyone's surprise, Emma laughed with delight. "Sometimes, Jay, you really surprise me," she proclaimed. "Let's do it."

XXX

"Okay." They were assembled on the sidewalk in the heart of the city, shuffling their feet nervously. Craig looked to the right, then to the left. "Someone start us off."

For all their excitement, the girls seemed to have lost their nerve entirely. Paige studied the sidewalk intently, Manny seemed to disappear behind Jay, even Emma looked uncertain. Already, the people passing by were starting to slow down and stare, no doubt wondering what the six of them were doing.

"Oh, for God's sake," Jay muttered, and then began, none too enthusiastically: "I don't wanna be a chicken..."

Paige snickered and added the awkward elbow movement that symbolized wings. "I don't wanna be a duck."

"I just wanna be me," Manny put in, her lips trembling with held-in laughter.

"Quack, quack, quack, quack!" the rest of them shouted out, clapping in tandem and startling the crowds around them.

"I don't wanna be a chicken," Craig sang, getting into it now.

"I don't wanna be a duck," Sean continued, his voice lower, rougher. He was hating every minute of this, but seeing Emma smile as she sang the next line made it worth it.

"I just wanna be me!" As the rest of her friends joined in on the refrain, as the businessmen and women of New York City stopped and stared, Emma realized that she had never felt so ... free. Of judgment, of worry, of everything. She was just there, in the moment, laughing and singing with her friends. Like everything was finally normal again. "Quack, quack, quack, quack!"

XXX

"It's official." Paige groaned and flopped over onto her stomach, the grass tickling her skin through her shirt. "New York City isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"We're only bored 'cause it's three in the morning." Manny yawned hugely and shifted so that her head lay on Jay's chest. "Of course nothing's going to be open."

"Sorry," Jay said lazily, not opening his eyes. "I'm just the idea man. Someone else probably should have thought it through."

Emma's laughter was muffled, as her head was nestled in the crook of her elbow. "Central Park in the middle of the night is pretty, though."

"Yeah, and not at all unsafe," Craig chimed in. He was still sitting up, strumming his guitar, his eyes periodically scanning the area that surrounded them. "We probably should have found a hotel."

"In New York City? My credit card would actually explode," Paige scoffed. Still, she inched forward on her belly until she could rest her head on his lap. "Don't look so worried."

His fingers abandoned his guitar strings to trail through her hair. "Me? Worry? Nah."

"Know what we should do?" Emma's eyes were closed now, but she raised her voice enough to get everyone's attention. "We should come back here and do this again."

"Another cross-country road trip?" Jay sounded skeptical. "I think once in a lifetime's enough, Em."

"No, just this part. The all-nighter in New York. I bet when we're twenty one, we'll be able to find plenty to do this late. Wouldn't that be fun?"

They all realized the enormity of what she was suggesting. Twenty one was still years away for them. To agree to her idea meant entertaining the idea that they would all still be friends when they returned from their trip, that they wouldn't let their lives fall out of touch long after.

Sean was the first to speak. "I think it's a great idea."

"Could be fun." Craig glanced down at Paige. "Don't you think?"

"Are you kidding?" For a second, they all held their breath. Then she grinned. "Dance clubs and bars and fruit-flavored drinks, oh my. I wouldn't miss it."

"We could come in December," Manny put in. "Go skating at that huge rink."

Jay nodded slowly, considering. "I'm in," he decided.

"It's a plan, then," Emma pronounced, and when she fell asleep a few minutes later, she dreamt about all the good things the future could hold.


	23. All the World's History Part One

-1**All The World's History (Part One)**

_Boston, Massachusetts_

"It's so weird." Manny glanced around at the traffic-filled streets, the busy sidewalks, the various shops and restaurants that peppered the city. All of Boston was filled with people going about their everyday lives, chattering on their cell phones, talking business over lunch, buying things they really couldn't afford with one swipe of the credit card. "It looks so _normal_."

Jay nudged her gently with his shoulder. "It's Massachusetts, Manny, not Mars. What exactly were you expecting?"

"It's just ... weird," she said again, adding in a shrug. "I mean, once upon a time, this is where the world as we know it started."

"Who said rebellion never got anyone anywhere?" He smirked, puffing out his chest proudly. "If it weren't for a couple colonists who didn't like being told what to do, we'd all still be British."

"And have really bad teeth," Paige put in, nodding sagely. The others laughed. "Oh, like you weren't all thinking it."

"Come along, darling," Craig adopted a British accent as he took her elbow to lead her away. "Would you care for a stroll around the Charles River with me?"

"Why, sir." Playing along, Paige batted her lashes. "I'd be honored."

Jay shook his head as he watched them go. "I never thought I'd say it, but those two are made for each other. What are the rest of us up to?"

He directed his question to Manny, thinking she'd have some itinerary for the two of them to follow, but she turned to Sean instead. "Actually, I was thinking I wanted to check out some of the historical sights. You wanna come with?"

Sean looked just as taken aback as everyone else by her choice in company. "Uh, sure, yeah. Sounds good. Is everyone else -"

Manny shot Jay a look and he quickly caught on. "Uh, I could use some company, Em," he said awkwardly, shooting a glance around for another idea. "I was thinking about checking out the aquarium."

"Okay." Emma couldn't imagine Jay wanting to spend quality time with under-the-sea creatures, but she couldn't miss an opportunity to see dolphins and all the other animals she was always talking about saving. "Want to all meet up in an hour at the Old North Church?"

"Sounds good." Manny was already pulling Sean down the street. "Have fun!"

XXX

Twenty minutes later, Jay had coughed up some cash and purchased entry tickets for both Emma and himself to the Aquarium. He had zero interest in aquatic life, but it had been the first thing he could think of that might interest his nature-loving friend.

"So," he began, and then shuffled his feet.

"So," Emma repeated, reaching up to twirl her ponytail around her pinky finger. "Which way to the penguins?"

Grateful for the reprieve, Jay went to consult the information desk, then returned with directions. "This way." He motioned for her to follow him. "Penguins, huh, Em? They're not even endangered, are they?"

"Ha-ha." Emma smiled at him. "I just think they're cute."

"How superficial of you," he teased. "So, what, Cameron's not cutting it for you anymore?"

At the mention of Sean, Emma froze. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "I can't help but notice that you two haven't been making eyes at each other lately. Indulge me, Em. Give me the scoop."

"Oh, I get it." The strange split-up suddenly made sense. "You and Manny are doing a little match-making, huh? I can save you some time. Sean is with Ellie. He knows where I stand. Until he's ended things with her, we really don't have anything to discuss."

"Man." He grinned, a little in awe. "You can be cold, Nelson. I'm impressed."

She shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on the animals below them. "I'm not going to set myself up to be hurt anymore. Life's short, you know? If nothing else, my step-dad taught me that. I can't keep waiting for Sean to get his act together."

Jay was silent for a long moment. How had he gotten stuck on the chick-talk side of this bargain? He would've been fine shooting the breeze with Cameron over Hooters' famous hot wings. "You know what my step-dad taught me?" he said finally. "To not rely on anyone else for your happiness. I see my mother, day after day, killing herself to please this guy, and it just ... it makes me sick."

Emma laid a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing. "So I'm glad," he continued, voice a little gruff, "That you're stronger than that. That you don't need Cameron to make you feel like you're worth something. But there's a difference between need and want, Em. And I think, if you were being honest with yourself, you could admit that you _want_ to be with Sean."

"Yeah, but -"

"No 'buts'," he interrupted. "It's been how many years since you first met? And after all that time, you're still caught up in all of - _this_? Maybe there's a reason you can't get him out of your mind." He reached up to take her hand from his shoulder and squeezed it. "Just think about it. Okay?"

Emma squeezed back and stared hard at the penguins frolicking on the other side of the glass. They mated for life, she knew that much. But how did they know when they'd found the one?

XXX

"So what gives?" Sean asked, barely ten seconds after they'd turned the corner and fallen out of Emma and Jay's sight.

Manny slowed down as they passed a street vendor, fingering the silken petals of the bright flowers. "What do you mean?" she asked, all innocence.

Sean narrowed his eyes at her. "That divide and conquer move you and Jay just pulled. You can't con a con-man, Manny. I caught that look. What are you guys planning?"

"Nothing," she answered, then laughed at his expression. "Seriously! I swear, we have no sinister plots, no ulterior motives. Except ..."

Sean groaned.

"_Except_," Manny continued, "Since you're so clearly wondering what's on my mind, I'll tell you. I was wondering where you and my best friend stand these days."

"Yeah, join the club," he muttered darkly.

"I mean, _I_ think it's pretty obvious that you're totally in love," she remarked. "But other people might have different opinions. Oh, like, I don't know, Ellie."

The mere mention of her name made Sean hang his head. "Manny, do you really think I'm the kind of guy who'd have one girlfriend on the road and another tucked away at home?"

"No," she said honestly. "I really don't. But again, others might not be so convinced."

"Emma," he concluded. Then he sighed. "Look, don't say anything to her, okay, because it's really not even your business. But I called Ellie and ended things with her last week, right after Emma yelled at me in Georgia. I've just been ... waiting for the right time."

"Sean. Seriously." Manny put one hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. "You of all people should know what a copout that is. I mean, you make all these little moves - you come on this trip, you teach her to surf, you make Jay chicken-dance ... anything to see her smile. But the best thing you could ever do for her is just tell her how you feel."

"It's a lot easier said than done, Manny," he argued, a bit testily. "Emma and I ... we have a history. It's complicated."

Manny shrugged. "History always is. But you're supposed to learn from it and move on. Otherwise, nothing ever changes."

"British with bad teeth," Sean murmured, recalling Paige's earlier comment.

"Or lonely with broken hearts," Manny countered, giving him a small smile. "Sucks either way."

"No." He shook his head, thinking of how many times on this trip he'd wanted to hug Emma, to hold her, but couldn't because of time and place and circumstance. "One's definitely worse."


	24. All the World's History Part Two

**All The World's History (Part Two)**

"I want to live here someday," Paige declared. They were standing in the middle of a small bridge that arced over the Charles, dropping bread crumbs into the water for the crowd of ducks that had gathered.

"Okay," Craig agreed, reaching into their bag for another slice. "Let's do it."

Paige looked askance at him. "Are you kidding?"

"Why would I be kidding?" He gave her a boyish grin. "I like Boston. And I like you."

She flushed and looked away, strangely nervous. In the entire time since she and Craig had gotten together, they'd managed to never mention the future. But since Emma had brought it up in New York City the night before, Paige had been able to think of nothing else.

She'd joined this little escapade simply because she'd needed time to regroup after the year she'd had. It was supposed to be an easy way to pass the time until school started again and she could return to her regularly scheduled life. But now, as they got closer to the border with each mile, she didn't _want_ to go home and be the same old Paige that Degrassi knew and feared.

Standing in a strange city, next to a boy she hadn't looked twice at until a month ago, she shouldn't have felt so at home. But she did.

"You're serious?" Forcing her eyes up, she met his gaze a little uncertainly. "You'd actually live with me?"

"Paige, I've lived with you in all summer," Craig said, his exasperation tinged with affection. "If I can handle you in a space as small as an SUV, I'm pretty sure I could deal with a one-bedroom apartment in Beantown."

The strange thing was, she could kind of picture it. The apartment would be tiny, overflowing with stuff that was mostly hers, since all Craig needed was a guitar and a mattress. She could go to school and major in fashion design, he would definitely find the local music scene. There would be nights they went out on the town and she dressed up in heels and long, lazy Sundays puttering barefoot around the living room.

"You really think we'll last that long?" She barely recognized the voice, so full of insecurity, as her own. "I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not the best at ... at long-term relationships. At relationships, period."

Craig grinned wryly, setting his camera to the side so that he could rummage in his messenger bag. "Yeah, and my track record's just one big gold star," he joked before finding what he was looking for. "Oh. Here. Remember these?"

He presented her with a small prescription bottle, filled with the same pills he'd shown her once before in Vegas. "Your pills?" Paige furrowed her brow, reaching out to take them in hand. "What about them?"

"I haven't been taking them," he confessed. His eyes sparkled as he shared his secret. "Since the Grand Canyon. And I feel so _normal_, Paige. Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm not, but ... I've got you to balance me out, you know? I don't need these anymore."

With deft fingers, he plucked the pills out of her hand. "And now that we're in this place that's filled with so much of past," he continued, "I think we should leave ours here, too."

Before she could reply, he had tossed the bottle into the Charles. "Craig!" she gasped, watching the ripple effect he'd created. She grabbed his arm, too late. "Are you sure that was a good idea?"

He beamed down at her. "I'm _positive_," he stressed, making it sound like a promise. "I told you before I even knew you, those pills are to make sure I don't become someone else. But I think this trip has taught me that I get to decide, you know, how I turn out. Meds or no meds, it's all on me."

"And me." Paige tilted her head and stretched to make her lips meet his cheek. "I'll make sure you don't forget who you are."

XXX

After waiting a good ten minutes at the agreed-upon meeting spot, Emma decided to wander over to the small cemetery in back of the church. Jay, in yet another rare show of sensitivity, offered to stay behind and wait for everyone else.

It was the first time she'd been alone, truly alone, at all during the trip. For a second, Emma just stood there, savoring the idea that there were no worried eyes watching her, no one waiting with baited breath for her to crack. But on the heels of that thought came another: no one to lean on, no hands to hold.

How had she ever thought she could do this alone? Remembering the first day, how irritated she had been at all of these people intruding on her life, she could hardly believe it. Without them - Sean and Manny, Craig, even Paige and Jay - she didn't think she would have survived.

Those thoughts in mind, she had made her way through the headstones, trailing her fingers along the cool granite. She didn't know what she was looking for, she just felt like so much had happened that she should take a few minutes by herself to reflect on how her life had changed.

But then she'd knelt in front of a stone engraved simply with_ Beloved Father - He will be missed_ and that had been the end of her self control. She was weeping openly, shoulders hunched and head down, the sorrow almost too much to bear.

"Oh, Emma." Suddenly, Sean was there, crouching down beside her, his arms wrapping around her waist for support. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

"I'm fine," she tried to tell him, still sobbing messily. "I just - I just miss him, that's all. I didn't realize - we've been so - I just really miss him."

"I know, I know," he soothed, his fingers skimming through her hair. "It's okay. He knew how much you loved him."

"But I never told him," she said mournfully, starting to pull herself together. Struggling to her feet, she swiped her sleeve across her cheeks to dry them. "I don't think I said it enough. I can't ... I hate that I wasted so much time."

"Me, too."

Emma's head snapped up. She could tell - from the somber tone in his voice, from the way he bent his head to look her in the eye - that he was talking about more than just Mr. Simpson.

"Sean, what - what are you -" she started to ask, but he cut her off.

"I know this isn't the best time, Em. Or place," he added, gesturing to the graves around them. "I know it's taken me way longer than it should have and you have every right to tell me to go to hell. But here's the thing."

He drew in a breath. "I came on this trip for you. Not because I thought you couldn't deal by yourself, just because ... I didn't want you to leave. I couldn't imagine going three months without seeing you."

"Sean, don't do this." It wasn't possible for her to look more miserable than she did. "Please don't, okay? I told you where I stand and I'm sticking by that. I can't get caught up in all this again. You're with Ellie. I get it."

"No, I'm not -" He broke off, sighed, tried again. "I'm not with Ellie. I called and ended things with her a week ago. We both knew it was over long before that. I've just been waiting to tell you. I didn't want you to think you were a rebound or second choice or something like that. Em, for as long as I can remember, it's been _you_. Okay?"

She turned away from him. "Sean, it's - I can't do this, okay? I'm a mess. I ... we're in a cemetery, for God's sake. You broke up with your girlfriend last week. I just ... you can't just ... I can't _do_ this."

"Emma." He took her chin gently, tilted her face back to his. "Don't do that. Don't walk away from this, okay? You can't, because you might be all right, and you might be strong enough, but ... I'm not. I'm miserable when I'm not with you."

Emma shook her head vehemently. "Sean, we have to put all this away. The whole purpose of this trip was to put the past behind us. That's what I came to do. You ... you're my whole past, you know? Everything I've done since Grade Seven is wrapped up in you."

"I know. I've been trying to forget you for years and it hasn't worked yet." He gave her a small, hopeful smile. "There's gotta be a reason for that, don't you think?"

She remained silent. "I know you're in a hard place right now, Em," he pressed on. "But this trip has helped all of us so much. Can't we learn one more thing from Mr. Simpson? I mean, he had so much living left to do. I don't want _you _to be on my list. When you look back on this trip, don't you want to know that you lived every minute of it to the fullest? Isn't that what all this has really been about?"

"Yes," Emma admitted, in the smallest of voices. Relief swamped him. "I did everything on the list to prove that I could. To make sure I had a little of him in me, even if he wasn't really my dad. And I guess, in a way, you're the ultimate test. He loved so easily - with his whole heart, you know? He wasn't afraid of being hurt."

"So, what do you think?" Sean held his breath, studying her face. If she turned him down, if this was it, he wanted to memorize every detail - the gold of her hair, the delicate turn of her nose, the endlessness of her brown eyes.

Emma's hand rose, slowly but surely, and her fingers wrapped around his. "I think I could cross one more item off the list," she told him.

"Yeah?" He couldn't believe his ears. "What would that be?"

"Fall in love," she said simply, and when she raised her lips to his, it was like no time had passed at all.


	25. Who Says You Can't Go Home?

Ok, so this is it! The end of The Long Road. Thanks so much to everyone who stuck with this story for an entire year, I appreciate each and every review! Don't forget to leave me your final thoughts!

**Who Says You Can't Go Home?**

_Burlington, Vermont_

"So, this is it." As usual, Jay was the first to say what they were all thinking. "Our last night on the road."

"You'd think it'd be more eventful," Craig remarked.

"What, the whole trip didn't have enough drama for you?" Paige asked, capping her bottle of nail polish and sitting back to admire her newly painted toes.

At that, Emma looked up, her fingers stalling in Manny's hair with the braid half-done. "Hey, you guys," she said, waiting until all eyes were on her before continuing. "I just want to say thank you ... you know, for coming on this trip. And for everything else you've done for me. I just ... I couldn't have done it without you. _All _of you."

"Em." Manny raised a hand to touch her friend's wrist. "We came because we wanted to."

"I came because I _needed_ to," Paige put in. She looked around at the rest of them. "Come on, fess up. Nobody's here entirely out of the goodness of their hearts. We all had our reasons for needing to get out of dodge."

"Paige may actually have a point," Jay spoke up. "We all needed out. And you, Em, you gave us a place to go."

"So we should probably be the ones thanking you," Craig chimed in.

Emma was shaking her head. "No, you guys, you don't understand. You saved me. You really did."

"Hey, I think we're all even. We saved each other." This time, it was Sean who spoke and, this time, Emma seemed to listen. "It was a good trip. That's all that matters, you know? It was a really good trip."

There wasn't really anything else they could say.

XXX

Hours later, Paige slipped into the hot tub beside Craig, who immediately reached up with one hand to smother her giggles. "Quiet," he hissed, though his shoulders shook with silent laughter. "You're gonna get us caught."

"By who?" She bit his palm, gently, but it was enough to gain release. "The one night manager who barely speaks English? I thought musicians _lived _for breaking rules at hotels."

Craig grinned and yanked her into a sitting position, his fingers moving underwater to tickle her bare midriff. "Did you want me to smash my guitar, too?"

Giggling helplessly, Paige writhed in his grip. "Stop, please, stop," she gasped out between fits of laughter. When he finally relented, she gave a long sigh of contentment, but made no move to separate herself from him.

A few minutes passed, then Craig hooked a finger under the strap of her bathing suit. "I remember this suit," he said casually. "You wore it when you were tanning at that rest stop in Oregon."

"You thought I was such a snob," she murmured.

"Who didn't?" He pressed a kiss to her temple. "I know better now."

Paige was quiet for another long moment. "Do you think things will be different when we get back?"

"Different?" He furrowed his brow. "Between us?"

She shrugged. "Between ... all of us. I mean, we weren't exactly best friends before this trip. Come on, haven't you ever seen _The Breakfast Club_? They all say that come Monday morning, it'll be like they never met."

"I think it'll be however we want it to be," he declared. "Besides, you're stuck with at least one of us. I can't afford Boston all by myself."

XXX

"Jay?"

He was almost asleep, sprawled out on his stomach and eyelids practically cemented shut, but he managed to grunt out a response. "Yeah?"

Manny tugged on the end of the braid Emma had given her. "What are you going to do when we get home?"

With a sigh, he forced himself to flop over. "What do you mean?"

"About your step-dad." She slid her gaze towards him, then away. "You can't live with him again. You have to go to the police or something."

Now he brought himself fully upright, cupping her chin so that she would meet his gaze. "It's not black and white like that, Manny," he said, surprisingly calm. "I may not get along with the guy, but he's never laid a finger on my mom and he makes her happy. Or as close to happy as I've ever seen her. I can't take that away from her."

Manny frowned, and she reached up to take hold of the hand that was pressed against her cheek. With her free hand, she swept a thumb across his brow, as if checking for worry lines that would reflect her own. "But where are you going to go?"

"I'll figure it out." With a small grin, he lay back down again, pulling her with him so that she was tucked into the nook of his shoulder. "It doesn't matter where I go to sleep or eat dinner. I've got a better idea of where I belong now."

She wasn't sure if that answer really satisfied her - after all, she knew Jay's short fuse, knew he would engage in fight rather than flight should it come down to that. But it the first time she'd ever seen him smile like he had nothing to hide and, thankful for that, she pressed her lips to his curved ones and settled down to sleep.

XXX

"You've been quiet."

Emma, leaning against the railing of the balcony, straightened up and turned to look at Sean, who was seated in the deck chair. "I was just thinking," she told him. "It's so strange that tomorrow, we'll be home. It feels like it's been a million years."

He nodded. "I know what you mean."

"So much has changed, you know? Look around." She pointed, first through the window to where Jay and Manny slept peacefully, then to the ground floor, where they could vaguely make out Craig and Paige splashing in the hot tub. "We're all so different now."

"Some things are the same," he said quietly, taking her wrist and tugging gently so that she fell into his lap.

"Yeah." She smiled at him, bending her head close so that he felt more than saw the curve of her lips. "I guess some things are."

Their lips met slowly, almost uncertainly, but it was like ... like trying on an old dress, Emma decided. When you're not sure if it's going to fit, so you hold your breath and tug the zipper slowly, but when you finally start to breathe again, you realize it still hugs your curves in all the right places.

"You still feel right," she whispered, pulling away just enough to speak.

Her arms were wound around his neck, every inch of her somehow melded to his body, and he had never felt more alive. "I'm just sorry it took us so long to get here."

"It was a good trip," she said, using the words he'd spoken earlier. "Well. Actually, it was a long, hard trip."

He chuckled. "I hope there's a 'but' coming."

Emma laughed, too, soft and warm, and pressed even closer, so that there was no space between them, no more distance to travel. "But ... it was worth it."

XXX

It was quiet the next morning as they packed their bags and piled them into the SUV for the last time. As Sean struggled to fit the various souvenirs they'd acquired into the already crowded trunk space, Jay came up behind him and peered in. "That's a lot of baggage."

With one last push, Sean stepped back and clapped his friend's shoulder. "Between all of us?" He shrugged, grinned. "It's not so bad."

Manny smiled gratefully at the boy, stepping up to wrap one arm around Jay's waist. "The man's got a point. We can probably handle it."

"Hey." Emma came to stand beside them, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, her fingers curled into the too-long sleeves of Sean's sweatshirt. "Who's got the keys?"

"That would be me." Paige dangled them from her fingertips. "Why?"

"Mind if I drive?" Emma looked vaguely nervous, but she was determined. It was the final step for her, a fitting end to a journey that had always been about finding her own direction. "I haven't had a turn this whole trip."

"You sure you don't want to stick to riding shotgun?" Craig questioned, arching an eyebrow. "You're the best navigator I've ever had."

She smiled and snagged the keys. "I can do both," she promised confidently. "I know the way."


End file.
